KCMO to shut down nearly half of schools

This is pretty sad. KCMO's schools have been looked at in a poor light for some time. Many of the schools in depressed areas.
Some grade levels will be mixed in with others: Example, middle schoolers going to the same building as high schoolers, etc.
When Detroit shut down 29 schools, it still had more than 170 remaining. In KC, there will be 32 left.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100311/ap_on_re_us/us_closing_schools

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kansas City's school superintendent said Thursday the plan to shutter nearly half the district's schools, while "painful," will move forward quickly so that all the closures will be complete by fall.

The school board narrowly approved the plan Wednesday night to close 29 of the district's 61 schools to try to stave off bankruptcy. The closures have angered many parents, students and teachers, but administrators say they had no choice because without them, the district would have been in the red by 2011.

 

That's absolutely stunning.

 

KC Star is saying 26 schools, not 29. Either way, it's not pretty.

 

It would be interesting to know what percentage of capacity the schools have been operating at.

 

Its a 'Holy Shit' moment, any way you cut it...

Either the district has been operating at a stunning inefficiency, or the district is in unprecedented hurt.

 

The Des Moines schools are watching the KCMO story closely because they have proposed to make major cuts to make up a $30 million deficit. The proposed cuts include the music and arts programs, and up to about 500 in the district to be let go.

 

Not really a d_b, but KC and similar issues were addressed on this thread:

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/76524/

Poin, I think the answer to you either/or is, both. As someone pointed out on the other thread, KC operates a lot more schools than other districts its size. Of course, these are suburban districts that gradually opened schools because growth, not kept them open because politics and the fear of killing neighborhoods created inertia.

Now that property tax revenue is getting hammered, and state funding is being cut in a big way, and the stimulus money from last year isn't around, a lot of school districts -- even (especially) those in the deepest suburbs -- are in a world of hurt. Just do Google News for school sports budget cut, and you'll see that in a lot of areas school sports are not long for this world.

 

Hoover would be a good candidate if they start shuttering schools.

And if a school district has a large number of buildings that are operating far below capacity, why WOULDN'T you choose to go the merger route to save money instead of cutting programs? Close the buildings you don't need and put the property on the market.

 

Don't know about KC but closing low capacity schools in predominantly black neighborhoods would trigger an avalanche of legal action.
Plus, in my neck of the woods, the districts couldn't do that because they'd be out of compliance with the desegregation orders hanging around from decades earlier.

 

Definitely both but especially this

Consolidation was long overdue, though not necessarily to this extreme
It's not as if the district has been performing well as is

 

So basically we'd have the NAACP or some other minority rights group suing to keep African-American kids in low-performing schools.

Fucking brilliant.