By Emily Randall
Northeast News
Feb. 17, 2010

In a special Kansas City, Mo., School Board meeting Saturday, Superintendent John Covington announced a proposal to close 31 schools, including six in the Northeast area.

Under the “Right-sizing the district” proposal, the district would save $50 million by closing 32 district buildings and eliminating 333 staff, including 285 teachers. Northeast High School, James Elementary, Whittier Elementary, Woodland Elementary, McCoy Elementary and Scarritt Early Learning Center currently sit on the chopping block.

“Folks, this is gonna hurt,” Covington said at the top of Saturday’s meeting, which took place at Husch Blackwell Sanders law office at 48th and Main streets.

Northeast High School’s fate is currently one of the least clear among the list of schools to be closed. Covington’s leadership team proposes possibly converting the school into a high-tech center.

“I think with that being the only high school in that area, to transition it to a tech school or vocational school sends a message to that community,” board member Cokethea Hill said, “and we should look at what that message is.”

She added she would rather see Northeast left as is and look at creating a vocational program in Manual Career Technical Center.

The superintendent said any student could still attend the school and receive a comprehensive education, but there would be additional technical programs housed in the building.

“We are not looking at Northeast in terms of restructuring it as a low-level, outdated vocational program,” Covington said, adding Northeast would resemble other “signature schools” in the district.

Elementary centers in Historic Northeast, which according to the district include Gladstone, James, Northeast, Woodland, Whittier and Garfield elementary schools and Scarritt Early Learning Center, would have 2,000 empty seats if none were closed next year.

Under the proposal, all early learning centers would close, including Scarritt, and preschool pupils would move into primary buildings. The elementary schools would either be preschool-second grade (primary) or third grade through sixth grade (intermediate) centers.

The plan includes closing James, Scarritt, Whittier and Woodland, as well as closing McCoy Elementary and possibly moving it into another building.

This would leave Garfield, Gladstone and Northeast elementary schools in Northeast. Gladstone and Garfield would be primary schools, and Northeast would be for third- through sixth-graders.

The proposal also includes doing away with the K-8 structure and moving seventh- and eighth-graders into the high schools. Covington said there would be ways to keep the younger children relatively segregated from the high-schoolers.

The superintendent and his leadership team also plan to implement a standards-based model of education throughout the grades, through which children would advance to a higher grade based on skill, not age. This would mean there would be multi-age grade levels, and a child could not advance to third grade if he or she could not read.

This program would be piloted in two schools, Covington said, and eventually it would move into all the buildings.

The closure proposal also calls for the district administration’s leaving the central office at 1211 McGee St. Covington said he doesn’t know yet where the administration would move to, but there are many other vacant buildings in the district. He added a message to potential downtown developers with their eye on 1211 McGee.

“We will never recommend giving 1211 McGee away,” he said, adding anyone interested in the site close to the Sprint Center and Power and Light District should be prepared to pay full price, and they should be happy to pay it as it benefits the children of the city.

The public has four opportunities to weigh in on the closure plan. The first was scheduled for Tuesday night at Northeast Elementary School, 4909 Independence Ave., to discuss Askew, East, Fairview, Garfield, Gladstone, James, McCoy, Northeast Elementary, NEHS, Pitcher, Rogers, Scarritt, Trailwoods, West Rock Creek, Whittier and Woodland.

The other three meetings will be:

• Wednesday at M. L. King Elementary School, 4201 Indiana St.

• Thursday at Paseo Academy, 4747 Flora St.

• Friday at Foreign Language Academy, 3450 Warwick Blvd.

All meetings are set for 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Covington said the school board would have a final review by Wednesday, Feb. 24.

Five other Historic Northeast schools on the chopping block through district “Right-Sizing”