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Brandywine
looking at
likely closure candidates
If
voters at the June 4 referendum again reject Brandywine School
District's bid for an increase in the operations tax rate, the
primary-level elementary school to be closed will be chosen from
among four possibilities -- Brandywood, Carrcroft, Lancashire
and Darley Road.
Superintendent James Scanlon
identified the closure candidates now being considered in
response to a question from an attender at the first of two
referendum information meetings. He said the selection would
depend upon logistics such as how to best realign attendance
areas, reassign teachers and rearrange bus routes.
The school board will receive and
probably take action on a recommendation at a meeting in July,
he said. The selected school would not reopen in August for the
coming academic year.
Even if the district is
successful in obtaining approval for an increase of 27¢ on each
$100 of assessed property value, scaled down from the 38.2¢ hike which
voters turned down in April, he said the board then or soon
afterwards would begin what is expected to be a year-long
process to determine which building or buildings to take
off-line. He previously has said that Brandywine must close one
or more schools to alleviate what he termed a serious
excess-capacity problem.
"It's an emotional, painful
process," he said, but added that closure will be necessary "if
we really want to use our finances wisely." It costs between
$400,000 and $500,000 to staff and provide energy to a school,
he explained.
The long-term approach to
closure, he said, will involve extensive community
participation, but indicated that opposition, which is most
likely to occur, will not alter the ultimate objective as it did
in 2005 when plans to shut either Brandywood or Lancashire and
Hanby or Springer Middle were dropped.
Scanlon alluded briefly to the
likelihood that consideration of the district's
four-three-three-four grades-configuration will be part of the
closure process. He did not elaborate.
Students attending any school
that is closed would be spread among other buildings. He cited
Mount Pleasant Elementary as a building with considerable excess
capacity. He said also that normal attrition would probably
absorb any teacher positions that would be eliminated by the
move and that no existing programs would be lost.
He denied that talk of closing
schools was a 'scare tactic' meant to influence voting at the
referendum. "If we wanted to use scare tactics, we'd say we're
going to cut the football teams and bands," he said. Instead, he
added, the worst-case scenario would mean fewer away games and
band competitions and doing away with some after-school clubs
with relatively small numbers of participants. An immediate effect of an
unfavorable vote, however, would be not offering any summer
programs not mandated by the state this year.
Be that as it may, he said the
district "will definitely close a school" if the tax increase is
not approved.
Scanlon maintained his usual
affable demeanor during a 65-minute talk and another hour spent
answering questions and moderating discussion among some
attenders. The audience was generally supportive with only one
man saying he will not vote in favor of the tax increase
because, despite the reduction, it is still too high a
percentage gain.
Thirty people -- including school
board members Joseph Brumskill and Debra Heffernan and some
district staff members -- attended the session at Brandywine
High School on May 15. Another information meeting is scheduled
for May22, beginning at 7 p.m. at Harlan Intermediate School.
In addition to presenting
previously supplied information and emphasizing the district's
record of academic achievements since the last operating tax
increase was approved in 2002, Scanlon made a point of defending
the size of the district's administrative staff, strongly
endorsing tuition-free full-day kindergarten, questioning the
value of charter schools, disputing some objections raised in
connection with April referendum, and stopping just short of
accusing local news outlets of bias.
Administrators, he said, "don't
just sit around all day drinking coffee." Instead, they are
actively involved, both at the district office and in the
schools, supporting teachers and guiding instructional
programs. Only 8% of Brandywine's operating budget is spent on
administration, which he compared favorably with state and
national averages.
Brandywine's administrative
salaries and benefits, he said, are in line with what is
necessary to be competitive not only in Delaware but also in
the surrounding region. The number of people seeking
positions in school administration is declining and competition
for those available is increasing, he said.
He said employment of an in-house
attorney and using her services, rather than engaging outside
counsel, has resulted in significant savings in conducting
expulsion and show-cause hearings.
Overall, he said, although
district employment has grown in the face of declining
enrollment, Brandywine has not hired any staff members beyond
what was needed to comply with state mandates. "We have not
hired more teachers than the state will [finance]. We are living
entirely within our allocation" of both teachers and
administrators, he said.
Scanlon said there are "conclusive
findings" that full-day kindergarten is demonstratively
beneficial in preparing children to begin their educations.
Brandywine's own data shows that resultant performance gains are
maintained through third grade and beyond, he said.
He said providing full-day
kindergarten on a tuition basis, as Brandywine has been doing
for several years, is not sufficient. "If it's good for the ones
who can afford it, it's also good for those who can't afford
it," he said. The district does not want to contribute to "the
great divide between the haves and the have-nots," he added.
He said that when a school is
closed the building is not likely to be made available to become a charter
school. "I don't think our school board would want to go
there," he said.
He said there is no conclusive
evidence that charters offer an advantage over traditional
public schools. "They're throwing kids out because they're
disruptive. And guess where they end up?" he asked rhetorically.
He said any belief that
Brandywine and other public school districts are short-changing
'average' students is unfounded. That impression, he added, is fostered by
"all the hype about the achievement gap and special-education
kids" and the federal No Child Left Behind law. The truth,
he said, is that "we're not ignoring the average child."
He denied that the April
referendum was intended to finance a 'wish list'. "It was an
absolute must-have," he said.
As a result of the rejection of
the tax increase, he explained, it is necessary to defer some
items it was meant to finance. A major one is enhanced
maintenance of school buildings. As a result, roofs will be
patched instead of replaced and high school auditoriums not
upgraded.
There also will be a reduced
ability to finance needed upgrades of technology. The district,
for instance, will continue to purchase older used computers as
being preferable to having classrooms go without any, he said.
In coming back with a new
proposal, the school board has reduced the time that the new
rate ceiling will be applied to three years instead of five as
originally proposed. That would indicate a belief that residents
could be asked to restore some or all of the deferrals at a
referendum in 2010.
Scanlon advocated instituting a
professional marketing campaign to "tell the truth" about the
district to the public. He attributed rejection of the tax
increase in April at least partly to a "failure to communicate"
sufficient information. "We're not hiding anything," he said.
When the News Journal newspaper
printed a erroneous figure grossly exaggerating the size of the
tax increase being requested, it took considerable effort to
obtain a retraction and "send a reporter out to get another
story," Scanlon said. A letter-to-the-editor which he submitted
was held for 10 days and then printed on a Saturday, a day on
which the newspaper has fewer readers.
"I don't know if that was on
purpose of not," he said.
"As soon as I was off the air,
they put out more misinformation," Scanlon said, referring to a
recent appearance on a radio station W.D.E.L. 'talk show'.
Noting that neither media outlet
sent a representative to 'cover' the informational meeting, he
urged supporters of the tax increase to "flood the paper with
letters" and to telephone audience-participation radio programs.
He also said that a state
legislator -- whom he declined to identify -- recently told him
that "I need you to fail [to get the tax increase] so I can make
some changes [in the way public education is financed]."
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