Superintendent Dr. Angela Chapman said CCS is spending and allocating more of its resources on facilities and maintenance of buildings rather than academics.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Columbus City Schools task force presented its final recommendations for school closures to the board.
The Superintendent's Community Facilities Task Force recommended closing or consolidating seven schools, two facilities and one administrative building. The buildings would be closed through three phases. The first phase would focus on elementary schools, second on middle schools and the final phase on high schools.
Here's the list of sites being impacted:
- Buckeye Middle School and Marion-Franklin High School would be consolidated and move into the middle school's site
- Moler Elementary School would be combined with Lincoln Park and Livingston Elementary Schools
- Fairwood Alternative Elementary School would be combined with Ohio Avenue and Livingston elementary schools
- Broadleigh Elementary School would merge with Eastgate, East Columbus and Fairmoor elementary schools
- West Broad Elementary School would be combined Westgate, Highland and Valleyview elementary schools
- Lindbergh Elementary School would be consolidated with Binns, Burroughs and West Mound elementary schools
- North Linden Elementary School would be consolidated with Huy, Maize, Innins and Northtowne
- The administrative building on East State Street would be relocated to the South High Street administrative site
- The Columbus City Preparatory School for Boys program would merge with Columbus Preparatory School for Girls; the site on Medway Avenue would close
- The Columbus Alternative High School programming, currently located at the McGuffey building, will move into East High School
In addition, the task force proposed consolidating the 6th grade students from the Linden-McKinley boundary area and turn the school into a middle school and high school campus.
The task force also recommends consolidating the 6th grade students from the South feeder pattern area to South High School, creating a middle and high school campus.
Another recommendation was to change Starling Pre-K-8 into a Pre-K-5 site. The transferring middle school students would go to Westmoor and Hilltonia Middle School.
The Columbus City School Board of Education will still need to vote on whether to approve the recommendations. But the final recommendations come after several weeks of deliberations and feedback from the community.
The board says they plan to take more time to get additional feedback from the community before making any final decisions.
"Ensuring that we are having opportunities and information in multiple languages. Ensuring that we are coming to where our community is at and not expecting them to come to us. Making sure that these opportunities are in the buildings, that they're during hours that families can participate, that our students can participate,” Christina Vera, CCS board of education president, said.
Many CCS parents, teachers, faculty and staff also weighed in on the recommendations and the meeting. While many of them were disappointed in the final recommendations from the task force, they said they believe the school board did the right thing, not only in acknowledging the many concerns brought to them from their school community, but also agreeing more time is needed and discussion should be had before any decisions are made.
"It's felt difficult to trust the word of our school board members at times, again the scandal involving board member Simmons comes to mind. Its felt difficult to trust our administration, but I do feel like a bit of trust has been restored tonight,’ said Stuart McIntyre, a CCS parent and Columbus Education Justice Coalition member, said.
"I do think this is a first step and as I heard president Vera speak I did start to feel a little bit of that trust coming back,” Susan Cavendish, a CCS parent, said.
In May, the Community Facilities Task Force presented options where up to 20 school buildings were up for potential closure. The decisions were split into different scenarios. Since then, the task force and school board have held several input sessions for parents, guardians, teachers and other community members.
Many parents and community members opposed the closures, expressing that they would significantly impact the students, teachers and neighborhoods around them.
The discussions surrounding the school closures were also met with controversy when a document outlining strategies to handle opposition was leaked by a school board member.
RELATED: Report released by Columbus school board says Brandon Simmons solely created leaked document
CCS Superintendent Dr. Angela Chapman spoke one-on-one with 10TV’s Tracy Townsend earlier this month about some of the spending and maintenance concerns the district has for its buildings.
Chapman said the district is spending and allocating more of its resources on facilities and maintenance of buildings rather than academic instruction.
"There is no way that we should be spending more of our money on maintenance of buildings," she said. "That gives me great pause. That keeps me up at night."
Chapman says following a vote, it will take at least a year before any changes take place.
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