Photo By Graham Lienhart

The school board failed to seek public input before deciding to close schools, according to Vanessa White.

Vanessa White is unhappy with the way the Cincinnati Board of Education went about deciding to close nine schools and eliminating thousands of seats from the district, but not because of the cuts -- it's the way they were made that bothers her.

"I'm a huge advocate of the district, I believe in working for and with the system, so it's important to me to have as much information and understanding as possible," White says. "What I'm really commenting on is the process more than the solution. It's hard to accept the solution when I haven't been engaged in the process. There's never been an engagement process where there's been an exchange of information."

All five of White's children are enrolled in Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS), and she serves as the president of Parents for Public Schools (www.cincinnatipps.org), a grassroots organization she describes as a "friendly critic" of the system. She believes parents and taxpayers should have had some say in the changes to the district's Facilities Master Plan.

"We felt there should have been a broader community and parent engagement," White says. "This was a plan the community supported and, as the cuts get steeper and steeper, I think more is required in terms of explanation. Folks passed the levy and are paying for this."

That's only partly true, according to Susan Cranley, president of the school board.

"Twenty-one percent of the money is coming from the state of Ohio, and that 21 percent has a lot of clout," she says. "The Ohio State Facilities Commission said they would fund the building program for 28,000 students. In our build-out year, 2011, the state of Ohio believes we'll have 28,000 students. Everybody acts like we're sitting around deciding to cut seats. We're not. We're basing it on what we get funding for. Every time we fund for a seat that the state doesn't, we don't get any state money. That becomes 100 percent locally paid for."

Numbers game
Because of a projected decline in Cincinnati's population, the state projects fewer students in CPS and believes fewer schools will be needed. But the school board has provided the state's demographer with new census from the city of Cincinnati's successful challenge to a reported population loss. Once that data is reviewed, the board hopes the state will increase CPS' projected enrollment.

"Then we can then go to the Ohio State Facilities Commission and say, 'Wait a minute, the state demographer says we're really going to have X-number at the build-out year,' " Cranley says. "Then they have to fund their proportion to those new numbers."

That kind of review can be called for at any time. What can't be changed is the Dec. 11 deadline to secure the money the state is willing to give CPS based on 28,000 students.

"We have to file certain papers with them," Cranley says. "All we're doing now is staying compliant with the Ohio State Facilities Commission."

The plan uses an enrollment that the school board approved, 32,315.

"I think that you go to the worst case scenario," Cranley says. "I would rather it be as awful as it had to be now and would rather add back. I think that's far less damaging."

Cranley says CPS Superintendent Rosa Blackwell did a great job implementing difficult changes. But the draft of the revised master plan Blackwell gave to the board prior to the formal presentation in July was rejected before she had a chance to explain it because her seat count was too high.

"The administration wanted 34,500," Cranley says. "We felt that was too great a disparity from what the state said that they would fund."

That unwillingness to consider a higher projection, combined with a low enrollment "cap" set by the board, are two of the reasons Florence Newell voted against the changes supported by Cranley.

"What makes me uncomfortable about the decision that the board has made ... is that it sends a message of hopelessness, that we don't have any confidence that our district is going to improve," Newell says. "Our district is in better shape than it's been in a long time. Academically, financially, we're sound.

"The voters have proven that they've trusted us to make the best decision that we can. When they actually voted, we were talking about 66 schools. The public said, 'OK, yes, it's going to cost us more money but, yes, our children deserve new buildings, better facilities.'

"With the exception of one building, as we build new schools, the enrollment in those buildings increases -- actual increases to the district. We have an average of 80 more students in each of the new buildings that we've opened as new constructions or renovations."

Focusing on improving the existing schools to attract new and returning families, in addition to graduating more students, is the way to increase enrollment and state funding, according to Newell.

Mostly black
Another disturbing element of these changes the board hasn't addressed is the way schools were selected for closure. Newell is hesitant when she raises the concern because she hasn't voiced it publicly until now.

"The other troublesome thing for me -- of the schools that we are not going to build based on this enrollment number, except for Whittier, all these other schools have a population of more than 80 percent black students," she says. "What this plan does is it removes neighborhood schools from communities that are impoverished and, for the most part, also black.

"I'm worried about all children who are impoverished. For middle class families who can figure out how to get their kids to the magnet schools wherever they're located, distance doesn't matter. It's the families of no-car or one-car that have the problems getting to these schools the further they are from home."

The selection process is handled by the administration, Cranley says. Saying there are tough choices to be made, she didn't want to cut seats from "academically performing" programs. But neighborhood school funding has been inadequate for so long that they've been unable to achieve a higher standard, penalizing those schools unfairly, Newell says.

Looking at these competing perspectives and hearing from the community is what Vanessa White says should happen now.

"It was a top-down decision," she says. "Members of the board who ran a strong campaign on really wanting to hear that voice -- in these kinds of situation, that's where the voice is so important."

Citing the engagement process used for the new community learning centers, White and Newell see citizen input as a way to look for creative solutions.

Cranley says she agrees and points out that school closures won't happen right away.

"Nothing is written in stone," she says. "What we're trying to do is be prudent, not pessimistic, as we perform our roles of oversight, governance and policy." ©