TUSD doing school closures right

by David Safier

This is encouraging. After last year's debacle where TUSD tried to close some schools from the top down and got so much blowback it retreated, this year the district is trying a rewards based, bottom up approach that appears to be bearing fruit.

TUSD has told schools, if you can join together and create a consolidation plan, we'll help you and even give you a bonus of some of the savings that come from closing one of the schools. It looks like 9 schools are thinking about this very seriously.

Bring principals and staff into the decision making process. Give them a chance to take advantage of an opportunity rather than giving in to a mandate from the top. That sounds to me like a recipe for success.

Put this offer together with an earlier offer — give us a plan for a new and different educational structure for your school, and if it looks promising, we'll help you out — and you've given schools 2 ways to energize themselves creatively and educationally. An energized staff is an improved staff. That's a truism. There's nothing like empowerment to make already-hard-working teachers and administrators work that much harder.