'Working plan' will guide Gary School Board ahead of closings
October 16, 2008
By Jon Seidel Post-Tribune staff writer

GARY -- The Gary School Board's decision to close 12 schools by 2010, possibly the largest collective shuttering by a public school system in state history, is simply a "working plan," officials say.

However, they said, Tuesday's vote means there's no going back now.

However, they said, Tuesday's vote means there's no going back now.

"These are the plans that we have put forward," Nellie Moore, the board president, said.

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"These are the plans that we have put forward," Nellie Moore, the board
president, said.

The district intends to close McCullough Girls Academy and Banneker, Ivanhoe, Ernie Pyle, Vohr and Kuny elementary schools. McCullough students will move to Locke Elementary School, which will become an all-girls school, and Banneker students will move to Kennedy-King Elementary School, which will become a K-8 building.

Dunbar-Pulaski, Tolleston and Bailly middle schools will close, with Dunbar-Pulaski becoming the new district central office and Bailly becoming an elementary school. The new Bailly will serve students from Kuny and former Franklin students from Ernie Pyle and Ivanhoe.

Wirt High School will close and become the new Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts. Martin Luther King Academy, the Gary Area Career Center and Chase Alternative School will also close.

News of the plan, which begins in the 2009-2010 school year, prompted so many questions from the community that spokeswoman Sarita Stevens' voice mailbox quickly filled to capacity Wednesday.

"They want to know some specifics, and that's normal," Stevens said.

However, she said, there are still several issues for the administration to figure out. For example, the plan will help the district survive a $23 million budget cut next year, but officials still don't know exactly how much will be saved.

"We know that it's multiple millions," Stevens said.

But as the process unfolds, Stevens said, members of the public will be invited to participate.

"The board did not just make this renegade move," Stevens said. "They allow the parents and the community to come to the table."

Much of the discussion on the issue took place Friday and Saturday, Moore said, during a School Board retreat that was open to the public.

Foster Stephens, president of Gary Teachers Union Local 4 AFT AFL-CIO, said he attended that retreat but didn't expect the board to take such drastic action so quickly.

"I was really kind of blindsided last night," Stephens said.

Closing schools is inevitable, Stephens conceded, but he wondered if the board should have involved the public to a greater degree before taking a vote.

"There was a vote last night," Stephens said. "Is the community going to accept that? I don't know."

Moore said the School Board took into account the public feedback that was gathered at forums held earlier in the year.

"We did listen to and heeded, for the most part, what the community said to us back in February and March," Moore said.

There will be another series of community meetings to talk about the closures, Moore said, though those forums haven't been scheduled yet.

John Ellis, executive director of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, said this decision is one that will likely help protect the district's general fund as public school budgets across the state are cut.

Other school districts in Indiana are also facing consolidations, Ellis said, though not on the same scale as in Gary.

"I don't recall anybody taking on that big of a project at once," Ellis said.

Contact Jon Seidel at 881-3148 or jseidel@post-trib.com. Comment on this story at www.post-trib.com.