Thursday, April 24, 2008
Changes at schools demand resources
Shanna Flowers
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No one should be shocked that Forest Park Elementary School is on the chopping block.
Besides being the object of Superintendent Rita Bishop's desires as the home to her proposed overage academy, the beautiful brick edifice on Melrose Avenue in Roanoke has been a low-performing school for several years. It is at risk for federally imposed sanctions.
For months, the whispers have been that if school officials closed any of the city's schools, Forest Park would be on the firing line.
Never one to mince words, Bishop said Wednesday, "Forever Forest Park has been a school in difficulty."
So there it is.
Bishop and her team have put together a proposal that would close Forest Park and Oakland Intermediate schools next year to convert them into alternative education programs.
If the board approves the plan, Oakland students would be funneled into one school, nearby Preston Park, where many of them previously attended.
Forest Park's transition, however, would be more involved. The plan would disperse its 265 students to Roanoke Academy for Math and Science and Hurt Park and Highland Park elementaries.
If the board decides to do this, here are three words of advice: Resources, resources, resources.
The move would take some of the city's most at-risk students -- educationally and socioeconomically -- and feed them into other schools serving large numbers of disadvantaged students.
According to Roanoke schools, 95 percent of Forest Park students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
That compares with nearly 97 percent at Hurt Park, 90 percent at Roanoke Academy and nearly 71 percent at Highland Park.
So if the schools plan to do this, they need to come strong. No half-stepping.
These schools need an infusion of dedicated resources to ensure that all of their students, and not just the Forest Park kids, would be successful.
I'm not talking an extra teacher's aide here or a support staff member there.
Don't waste these students' time with first-year teachers who have good intentions but no experience.
These challenging student populations would require -- and deserve -- proven principals and veteran teachers who know how to teach and also understand the challenges students face outside the school walls.
They would need reading and math specialists, with expertise in delving "into the data," as educators like to say, and pinpoint exactly how to improve a child's weakness.
Bishop told me Wednesday that she has those plans in place.
If she delivers to these elementary children, maybe in 10 years, the overage academy will be unnecessary.
