The Kansas City, Missouri, school board voted Wednesday to close 28 of the district's 61 schools.STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Kansas City school board approves plan to close 28 of 61 public schools
- Superintendent says 'right-size' plan is needed to save money, prevent declining enrollment
- Critics say closures will drive residents away from school districts
(CNN) -- The superintendent calls it the "Right-Size" plan," but many Kansas City, Missouri, residents say it's plain wrong.
Superintendent John Covington called for the closing or consolidation of almost half of the city's public schools. A divided Kansas City school board voted Wednesday to approve the downsizing.
A packed room of people watched the board make its historic move after weeks of debate and years of declining enrollment. Some parents voiced their anger, while some students cried.
"I have an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old that will be going to school with 12th graders. I find that very inappropriate. I don't feel my children will be safe," Deneicia Williams told CNN affiliate KSHB-TV.
"I feel like I have nothing, I have no high school legacy. I feel like I have nothing, nothing to go back to," said Prince Jones, a senior, who will be part of the final graduating class at Westport High School.
Covington proposed the "Right-Size" plan arguing that the financial future of the entire school district was at stake. The plan shutters 28 of Kansas City's 61 public schools, cuts 700 jobs and saves $50 million to help reduce a burgeoning deficit.
Some called Kansas City's measures draconian but school districts across America, hit hard by budget cuts, have been struggling to make ends meet.
They have had to make tough choices between closures, program cuts, bus route cancellations and layoffs of teachers and staff. Schools in at least 17 states have opted for four-day weeks.
We have done the same on PEI - but on PEI the costs continue?
What was never looked at was another model. We all assume that schools are designed and run like factories where scale is key to ROI.
So what could another model be? I think another model could be based not on a factory but a network. We could have a return to the one room school but this time a "Smart" school that is linked to all the others. Schools that use the web and that are designed to be connected and to teach kids how to be connected. For all the knowledge is out there.
A school that is within walking distance - that has a wide ranges of ages - that has a teacher that is a facilitator. A set of schools that might have hubs with labs and gyms shared by many and so on.
Schools that never close and that are the hub of their own neigborhood.
Buhler? Buhler?
