I know this is something that needs to be done...but it is going to wreck havoc on parents on gettting their kids to school and then getting to work... students from Banneker going all the way out to Miller in the morning... a little kid going to school @ Ivanhoe, his/her parents are now going to have to drive all the way to Glen Park...wow traffic is going to be a mess... so all the students going to Wirt just go where ever they want... I guess to get on the good side of things, you have make some serious changes... I hope and pray for the best... it is what it is.

With little detail, Gary plan fuels fear
October 16, 2008
BY MARK LAZERUS Post-Tribune Sports Editor

The teachers, the students, the parents -- they say the Gary School Board is out of touch with reality. That closing down Wirt High School and merging east side kids with those from Lew Wallace, Roosevelt and West Side will lead to unprecedented violence and lost lives.

The School Board says the community is out of touch with reality. That the city can't afford to operate millions of dollars in debt, that the schools are failing and the athletic programs are faltering because the resources are spread too thin.

The School Board says the community is out of touch with reality. That the city can't afford to operate millions of dollars in debt, that the schools are failing and the athletic programs are faltering because the resources are spread too thin.

The two sides are in direct conflict. And the two sides are both entirely correct.

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The two sides are
in direct conflict. And the two sides are both entirely correct.

The hallways at Wirt on Wednesday -- the day after the long-anticipated yet still somehow stunning decision from the Gary School Corp. -- were filled with nervous chatter, with worried teachers, with furious students, with dire forecasts.

"The School Board members are disconnected with reality in Gary," said Omar Vazquez, a well-respected teacher and boys basketball coach at Wirt. "There'll be a war. Gang wars. And kids will get hurt. Kids will die. They can't guarantee the safety of the kids in those schools, and now they're going to throw these kids in there, too, to get hurt? I've never seen anything like this. There's going to be a war. And how many years will it take for that war to slow down? I just don't know. I'll say about four or five years. Every kid's life or safety is at risk. These people are not considering that."

That was my first thought, too. There's a tenuous status quo right now in Gary, with gangs omnipresent at each of the four high schools. Wirt's got them, too, but with a couple of locally bred police officers monitoring the situation, out in the community and in the hallways, there's really not much conflict. The other schools have similar tentative peaces, some more fragile than others.

But what happens when you throw the Wirt kids in with the Roosevelt kids? With the Wallace kids? With the West Side kids? What happens with these territorial turf wars start to overlap?

Bad things, according to Vazquez. Very bad things.

"You have a whole bunch of neighborhood gangs," Vazquez said. "Every two or three blocks, the kids get together and give themselves a name and turn themselves into so-called gang members. You can't bring six or seven neighborhood gangs into a different territory. Who's going to control that? There aren't enough cops or personnel to control that. You know exactly what's going to happen.

"It's just a plan they have, with no thought at all. People go to a retreat and drink too much wine, then they think they're smart and come up with outrageous and unreasonable stuff like this."

On the other side, Marion Williams, a School Board member and former principal at Roosevelt, said it was anything but a thrown-together plan. It was the culmination of a year's worth of expensive research and self-analysis -- the only way to solve a staggering budget deficit, the only way to get Gary back on track academically and athletically, the only way to get the city headed in the right direction, the only option.

"We had a $23 million shortfall," Williams said. "We can't just sit there and have one of the highest tax bases in the state and not address that. That'd be irresponsible on behalf of the board members. There's a lot of fat, and you've got to address that."

Williams understands the concerns the community has. But he's advocating patience -- he pointed out that the announcement was made with nearly 11 months to implement the plan, not just a couple of months. He said there'll be community forums and focus groups and all sorts of ways for the community to get involved and have their concerns addressed. He said there are details yet to be released, plans yet to be revealed.

And he doesn't buy the violence argument.

"I hear people make that statement," he said. "There's not any data to indicate that that level of violence exists in Gary. If a person wants to use that as a premise for not restructuring, yes, you can use that as an argument. But if you start trying to pull data together to support that factually, you can't. Besides, it's the responsibility of the board, staff and parents and the community to prevent that."

Does that mean there's money in the budget for armed guards at every door? Because, sadly, that's what it might take.

Also consider this

And on a much less significant scale, what about athletics? Do all Wirt athletes become free agents, ready to be wooed by other Gary coaches in a recruiting free-for-all? The violence isn't the only thing that will need to be policed.

Vazquez said that it will be messy -- a "disaster" -- and that the Wirt kids could get hosed in the end. Not because of a lack of talent (the Troopers have been among the region's top basketball programs in recent years), but because of the unfair situation.

"When Horace Mann closed, all those kids came to us, except one who went to West Side," Vazquez said. "None of them made it on our team. Well, one did. He played five games for us. And others might just quit. They might not want to have to adapt to a new coach, new teammates, a new system."

It all makes sense.

But again, so does the other side's argument. Do we really want Gary athletics to stay the same? Let's not forget the Roosevelt helmet debacle, the Wallace scoreboard debacle, the West Side field debacle.

Williams sure hasn't.

"We have one of the worst perfoming athletic programs in the area, and people are arguing about low numbers and low attendance -- those are factors I'm concerned about," he said. "Our schools will become competitive now. We need to look at better strategies to have our programs become more successful, and we can do that. People are talking about just buying helmets -- come on now. We've got to overcome that. People are talking about a scoreboard -- come on, now. We've got to overcome that. People are talking about playing on a field that wasn't ready -- come on, we've got to solve these problems. And you can't solve these problems with 400 students in a school, or 300 students in a school.

"These are issues that suburban schools solved years ago. When they had small enrollment, they consolidated suburban schools throughout the state of Indiana. We have evidence to indicate that there are successful models throughout the state of Indiana. Gary can't stay back in the 1950s and '60s; we have to move forward and be concerned about efficiency and operations. The district can't even buy helmets, come on. Can't buy shoes, come on. We've got 23 people in the stadium while Crown Point has 5,000 or 6,000 people out there. People don't want to play Gary schools, because we're not as competitive. We get beat 47-0 all the time. Something has to change."

Indeed, something does. But is this the answer? Is this the best course of action? Vazquez suggested Emerson be merged into Wirt, and everybody stays put (there is room). But Williams said the School Board didn't want to do that because Emerson has become a "jewel" of the city and should be "embellished, not diminished."

"It's a model for the entire country," he said. "People come from all over to see our Visual and Perfoming Arts school."

Time go public with the plan

OK. But what happens when those same people see what's happening to the west of that shining jewel? When gang violence becomes a huge issue, as it did when Chicago Public Schools went through a similar merging process? When stories of bloodshed among teenagers dominate the headlines?

It's not pleasant to think about. But at least both sides are talking -- even if the Gary school corporation won't be happy about it (a personal note to them -- get over it, these are good people with legitimate concerns and discussion is always a positive).

Public discourse is always good, even when vitriolic and frightened.

"You can't just clam up and not talk to the media," Williams said. "You need to give the people an explanation, we owe the media that courtesy, otherwise there are going to be fears out there. We have to tell our side of the story. Everybody does."

Thing is, we're still waiting for that full side of the story. We know what the students, parents and teachers think -- that this is a disastrous proposal.

But what about the School Board's side? What are the specifics? The plans? The solutions?

We're waiting. Impatiently.

Williams said there are plans in place, good, solid plans from good, solid people. But until we know what those plans sare, the fears and the doomsaying will continue.

And, let's face it, there's no guarantee those plans will do anything to change that.

Contact Mark Lazerus at 648-3140 or mlazerus@post-trib.com