Mandated school closings appear like forceful action, but have not produced results (2024)

School 41 wasthe latest Rochester school to receive the “death penalty.”

To preserve its hundred years ofhistory, one Saturday in mid-June students filled a time capsule with class pictures, pompoms and favorite memories. “Maria, Maria” played in the background as district employees shoveled dirt over the capsule. It was the last ever end-of-the-year carnival, and kids happily ran between bounce houses.

One could almost avoid thinking that the patch of dirt lookedlike a smallgrave.

In September, a new school with a differentname and mission will open at the same address, and the majorityof thesekids will be back for opening day.

Since 2002, the district has closed 26schools (including School 41) and opened 18,according to state data. Some schools —which had the lifespans of mayflies — were both opened and closed during that time.

EDITORIAL: Closing failing schools is a failing solution in Rochester

The result of all this disruption and upheaval?

Eight percent of elementary school studentspassed the 2017 reading and math tests and the city's graduation rate remainsthe worst in the state.

In 2002, the Federal No Child Left Behind Act ushered in an era of penalties — including closure—for failing schools. New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia says that in the past, Rochester hasfailed to execute plans designed to ensure the success ofschools that replace failing ones. The state has put an external monitor over the planned reopening of School 41 in the fall, hoping to change a pattern of chaos and failure.

“Rochester has done this multiple times with not an enormous amount of success,” said Elia."We are being very focused on making sure that at every step of the way, they are doing the things they are supposed to be doing."

You can’t really say that the strategy of closing schools and opening new ones has failed, because there has been no coherent strategy,saidschool board President Van Henri White.

“It’s a never-ending moving target,”White said.

The benchmarks, metrics, test score requirementsand timelines associated with school closings have shifted multiple times over the years, along with changes in federal and state leadership. The same is true for the regulations associated with opening new schools. When the replacement for School 41 opens in the fall, it must have all new administrators and 51percent new teaching staff. This wasn't the case for other new schools.

More: How to close and reopen a Rochester school

Whiteaccepts the concept of consequences for schools that don’t educate, but says state and federal leaders have created policies that are removed from the realities of the classroom.

What's clear is that all of thataction has producedlittle result.

For example, Franklin High School shut down in 2004 andwas replaced by three schools which have all now closed. One of those was Franklin Global Media Arts, whose graduation rate in its last year of existence was 52 percent. Vanguard Collegiate High School, which now occupiesthe Franklin Building, has never had a graduation rate higher than 42 percent in any of theyears since it opened in 2010.

Edison Career and Technology High Schoolhas had eightdifferently-named schools in its Colfax Street building in 12 years. Rochester STEM High School, the most recent school to close in that building, never had a graduation rate of more than 29 percent.

The Rochester City School District is not even engraving the names of somenew schools on theirfacades anymore. They are merely printing plastic banners and tying them to the front of buildings, where they can be easily removed if the schools don’t last.

Schools close, families stay

Other New York districts have managed to replace low-performing schools with better ones, says Elia. For example, in the BronxP.S. 064 Pura Belpre wasclosed in 2016 due to poor performance. The replacement school, Walton Avenue School, saw 60.9 percent of its students pass the state's ELA exams and 78.1 percent pass math in 2017.

Suchsuccessesare not commonplace.

Less than half the students displaced by closures end up in better schools, according to research from the Center for Research and Education outcomes at Stanford University. Multiply that by thethousands of schools that have been closed and opened across the United States since 1995 —in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Detroit and Rochester —and poor children are still being left behind.

School closures that place kids in equally low-performing schools can leave children worse off than if they had stayed in their original low-performing school, the Stanford research found.

Closing a school breaks social ties, which are critical to emotional health and development. Friendship, camaraderie and community aren'tsmall things to a child. More than 80 percent of the students of School 41 are returning in September. At the closing carnival numerous parents explained why they made that choice. Most responded like Paige Sims, whose 5-year-old son just finished kindergarten. “All his friends are here,” she said.

For a kindergartner, closing and opening a school means that she will have to get used to a new principal, changes instaff, a new culture andnew rules. Favorite extra-curricular activities may or may not be offered. The soap box derby may or may not continue.

Maps showing the location of schools opened and closed since 2001 can be found here.

More: Location of Rochester school closings since 2001

More: Rochester school openings since 2001

Resources wasted

At the district level, closing and opening up dozens of schools means countless hours spent on paperwork, staffing, interviewing, planning and logistics. Since thishasn't resulted in better schools, the constant churn and upheaval has just wastedenergy and resources that could be directed towardkids. "It consumes vast amounts of human capital resources," said White.

And money.

In the 2017-18 school year the districtspent $6 million in School Improvement Grants at 13 priority schools including School 41, which now no longer exists.

To make a case for stability, former superintendent Bolgen Vargashad a poster created to show the organizational chaos he walked into when he took over the district in 2011. At that time, 35 schools were opening, closing or going through some sort of major reorganization.

Two of the schools that were opening that year have already closed.

City Councilman Adam McFadden, who graduated from School 41 and tried to help save it, says that the state legislation is flawed. The timeline for schools toimprove —which has shortened over the years —is unreasonable.“If the standards are unrealistic, you are asking for miracles,” he said. “You are expecting them to be the Michael Jordan of education.”

He says School 41 should have been given more time to see if its reforms were having any effect. “It takes five years to turn a school around,” he said. School 41 had less than threeyears to raise its test scores after entering state receivership.

Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams and Principal Lisa Whitlow also pleaded the casefor more time for School 41. The state said no.

Will things be different this time? Can the new School 41 replicate the success of the Walton Avenue School in New York City?

In addition to mandating an external monitor, the state hasrequired the district to hire an experienced principal, replace over half the teachers,conduct staff development and provide support for students around certain critical subject areas. Meanwhile, the RCSD has created a framework, called Rochester, Innovation, Schools, Empowered or RISE, that aims to incorporate best practices for starting new schools and ensure that the district learns from pastmistakes.

Judi Smart hastwo daughters whoattended School 41, whose memories are buried in its time capsule. Thalia Jimenez, her older daughter, wrote about her class Christmas party."We decorated cookies and took pictures with our friends." Both girls will attend the school'sreplacement. Smartmade that choice so that Thalia could graduate with the friends she has had since kindergarten. Thalia worries about the first day of school. The building will be the same,but much about the new school is still unknown including its name. "I'm nervous," she said. Her mother shares her concerns."I don't know what to expect."

Erica Bryant is the Pay it Forward Columnist. Contact her at ebryant@gannett.com.

Coming Next Week: What Will Be Different This Time? Can a failed school be reborn and succeed? Closing some schools has borne fruit in cities like New York City, Camden, New Jersey, and in Indianapolis. We highlight best practice and tap experts to explain how to ensure a reopened school is positioned to succeed for students and families.

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