Crunch Time for Tucson School Closings

by David Safier

Unless the TUSD School Board decides to “consider” the issue of school closings one more time, Tuesday should be the big night for Ochoa, Corbett, Wrightstown and Rogers elementary schools. The Board is scheduled to vote on the school closure issue at its 7pm meeting (1010 E. 10th St., for anyone interested in attending — and what could be more interesting than a school board meeting? Though this one promises to have more theater than most).

I’ve already said that the district has few choices these days. Financial rocks and hard places litter their agenda like land mines. (On top of everything else, the end of the desegregation order has the potential of costing the district millions.) And with shrinking enrollment, school closures seem like a reasonable option.

This tax-and-spend-liberal believes that, if the schools are doing a better job with their limited enrollment than bigger schools, we should find the money to keep them open, and even think about ways to shrink the size of other schools. But, as Ronald Reagan once said, There I go again.

Two school board members, Bruce Burke and Adelita Grijalva, wrote an op ed defending the need to make a decision on the closings at the same time they admitted they haven’t handled the issue very well. Reading between the lines, it looks to me like they are likely to close one of more schools.

I wrote a while back that I thought Ochoa was the most likely school to be closed, simply because it has the lowest income population. Saturday, the community held an event to support the school that attracted 900 people. The arguments supporting the value of Ochoa to the community were compelling. This kind of outpouring of support might give the Board pause. But . . .

I still lay odds on Ochoa being closed, even if some of the others are spared. Community activism makes a lot of noise, but a few well placed phone calls from well-heeled community members in the other areas pack more wallop. Money talks, activism walks. That’s the rule I’ve seen play out over and over in school districts and elsewhere. Exceptions are not unheard of, but they are more often concessions to soften the inequity rather than wholesale support of the lower income schools.

This is one time I would love to be wrong. I would be overjoyed to see a level playing field in this decision. Please, if I am in error, beat me over the head with my cynicism in your comments and tell me I should be more optimistic, more idealistic. I will accept the punishment with a glad heart.