Fair Park To Remain Open

(Thanks to Mickey Phillips for bringing this to my attention.)

Final Vision 2020 calls for school closures, consolidations

Written by
Mary Nash-Wood
mwood2@gannett.com
March 8, 2011

Fifteen schools are slated for closure over a three-year period under Caddo Parish School Board's new master plan.

The new Vision 2020 calls for the reconfiguration of 10 campuses and the consolidation of 24 more. Board members will vote on the plan March 24. The plan also gives steps to increase student performance, enhance fiscal health and seek removal from a long-standing consent decree.

The proposal came Tuesday as board members were told of a projected $20 million budget deficit for the coming school year. Finance Director Jim Lee said something must be done in order for the district to stay afloat.

Caddo School Superintendent Gerald Dawkins said if the board approved the plan, it is scheduled to roll out in three phases, beginning this fall and continuing through 2014 with the construction of four schools. He added a bond proposal for the new schools and the renovation of others would not come before voters until the last phase.

"We are in a critical time where we can no longer afford to stand by," Dawkins said. "Our youngsters deserve the best resources available."

Cathy Bonds, head of the Fair Park Alumni Association, said she was thrilled to learn the school was taken off of the closure list.

"I'm delighted," she said. "I feel like community involvement made all of the difference and they seemed to respond to us saying that Fair Park needs to remain open."

Others were not so pleased to learn their schools would close as early as next school year.

"I'm shocked," Carrie Goskin, PTSA president of Blanchard Elementary said of the moment she learned Blanchard would combine with Donnie Bickham this fall. "We had been assured by Dr. Dawkins himself that it would be years before any of this would happen and here it is coming next school year."

The proposal also calls for:

· Initiatives to make sure all students will read on grade level by the end of second grade. The district looked into more stringent reading work, workshops and moving reading interventionists and specialists to lower grade levels to build reading skills from the lower levels up.

· Increased graduation rates, college and job readiness through technical programs beginning at the middle school level and more remediation programs.

· Eliminate inefficiencies in support services through central office reorganization and consolidation of duplicate functions.

· Recommend changes in board policies to directly impact district's efforts to improve effectiveness and efficiency in academics and operations.

· The district seek unitary status from its 1983 consent decree. Unitary status would put an end to direct federal court oversight of the schools.

· Piloting of foreign language exploration classes to have students prepared to communicate in an ever-changing business world.