Do you think it is a good plan for the Mesa school district to close down several elementary schools, as suggested by a district committee?

1 comment:

• Dale Whiting posted at 8:40 am on Sat, Apr 28, 2012.

  Posts: 3705

  With only 11 votes in so far, it's 8 in favor of closing down neighborhood grade schools.

  Yes, it's sad but true. We cannot afford to support neighborhood schools when those neighborhood populations are declining. The remaining kids will have to be bussed. But this is nothing new. Yet take heart. Many of those neighborhood schools which were closed down in years past have found new life as charter schools where parents, not busses and kids, create the supportive transportation system. Why charter schools so threatened the Mesa School District, that it created its own charter school system and put many of those former neighborhood school campuses back into business. This allowed the few remaining neighborhood kids to have their local school once again.

  I'm no all out supporter of charter schools. I have a cousin who created Mesa's Benjamin Franklin Charter School system and another who teaches at a charter school campus. What's more, one of my kids attended a charter school for a semister when Chandler Schools would not work with us on his account. There is no perfect school system. Eventually we won out. Chandler caved in.

  Neighborhood schools have their advantages and charter schools have their advantages. We just need to put the kids' needs ahead of their parents's needs. And choice gives us the opportunity to do that. So let's make the best of a sad thing.

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