Panel urges crowd to oppose school consolidation

GRAMBLING — A group dedicated to opposing the Lincoln Parish School Board’s plan to consolidate Ruston’s elementary schools spoke to a gathering of nearly 100 residents Tuesday night, urging them to vote against the tax renewal that would fund the proposal.

Attendees crowded into the fellowship hall of New Rocky Valley Baptist Church to hear from the Coalition Against School Closures (CASC), who spoke for an hour and a half about why they believe the school board’s plan to close two elementary schools in Ruston and expand the other two would be harmful to the community.

In February the board voted 7-4 along racial lines to approve a $ 65 million capital improvement plan for the Ruston school district and call an April 29 election to renew an existing 17.75-mill property tax to fund the plan.

Some $ 53 million of those funds would be used to expand the campuses of Glen View Elementary School and Hillcrest Elementary School, which currently serve grades K- 2, to become K- 5 schools, while Cypress Springs Elementary and Ruston Elementary School would close.

The CASC panelists, including two school board members who voted against the plan, objected to the fact that two schools on the south side of the city, where the majority of Ruston’s Black neighborhoods are located, were chosen for closure.

“We are concerned about losing schools in our communities, because that’s a death knell,” said panelist Janet Guyden, a former Grambling State University dean and administrator. “When a school leaves a community, it takes the heart out of a community, and that’s a problem.”

The CASC plans to hold a second town hall at Ruston’s Mays Chapel CME Church Tuesday at 6 p. m. to continue spreading the word to residents. The group hopes to bring the community’s concerns to the next school board meeting and ask the board to reconsider the consolidation plan.

If that fails, the group will focus on campaigning against the April 29 tax renewal election.

“The irony of this plan looks really crazy to me,” said Liz White, of Ruston, a retired Louisiana Tech professor and CASC co-chair. “It tells Black taxpayers to pay on a tax bill for 20 years to have schools closed in their neighborhood.”

When the board passed the plan, President Joe Mitcham said the sites designated for expansion were “ not chosen based on demographics,” but based on the conditions of the buildings and the lay of the land.

In fact, officials say Cypress Springs was originally targeted for expansion rather than closure, but doing the project at that site proved to be too costly.

CASC panelists took issue with more than just the locations of the schools to be closed.

They say moving from four elementary campuses to two will have a negative impact on discipline, truancy and student morale as the larger schools become less of a home.

“When you get 700, 800 kids in there, they’re just a number,” said District 2 school board member David Ferguson, a former principal. “The school environment is the most important part of a successful school. I don’t see it being there when they put all these kids in one spot.”

Conversely, it’s the effects on school environment that Superintendent Ricky Durrett has said prompted the consolidation plan.

The proposal aims to cut down on difficult transitions for students by allowing them to stay at one campus for more years without disruption. Officials believe that would also boost student and parent buy-in as they grow accustomed to one administration for a longer period.

Both proponents and opponents of the plan have pointed to the early wake-up times that many students and families must adopt in order to catch the bus.

But they disagree on whether consolidating the schools would help or hinder that situation.

“If the schools move, that means those children who are on the south side of Ruston are going to have to get up even earlier,” said Jackie Sumler, a former teacher.

Durrett has said the plan would have the opposite effect. Since buses for each of Ruston’s two attendance zones would only be transporting students to one school instead of two, the routes would be shorter, students would be on the bus for less time, and school could start later.

The CASC panelists also pointed to the additional traffic congestion that expanding Glen View and Hillcrest would cause in those areas.

“I have done carline at Hillcrest for the last 16 years, and I can tell you, it’s a zoo,” Guyden said. “ How do you double that? That’s a problem.”

Panelist Bill Smith, a former legislative assistant and longtime staple attendee of local government meetings, took issue with the school board’s decision to move forward with this plan without adequately consulting the affected communities.

“They sat in there in less than five minutes and spent $ 65 million,” Smith said. “For a whole community to be left out — if they wanted to do it right, they would have come to the community. They would have sent some fliers home. They would have done something to involve all of us, ask us what we think.”

In addition to voting down the tax renewal, panelist and District 1 school board member Danielle Williams said the group’s other call to action is for the community to be more engaged at board meetings.

“Please start coming to school board meetings,” she said. “This crowd, we need to show that at the school board meetings to show them we have a voice.”

White said the group’s first event was a “huge success.”

“I’m overwhelmed by the turnout,” she said. “I saw more than I expected. They’ll go back and tell others, spread the word.”

The deadline to register to vote in person or by mail for the April 29 tax election is Wednesday. April 8 is the deadline to register through the Louisiana Secretary of State’s online registration system.