Parents appeal to keep schools open

May 31, 2010 — The Arizona Daily Sun

Hillary Davis

May 27, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Coconino High School has a strong marching band program, but at one time, it literally had a bigger presence.

That's something longtime music teacher Jon Eder would like to see return.

Eder, who is now Flagstaff High School's band and orchestra director, advocated for a two-high school plan next year because it would allow depth of electives, in music and other subjects.

Tuesday's board meeting was the last regular meeting before the planned June 8 vote on a closure and reconfiguration plan, and several people took advantage of the call to the audience to make appeals as the clock ticks down.

"I would love to field a 100-person marching band again," he told the Flagstaff Unified School District's governing board Tuesday. "It'd be a lot of fun."

Eder recalled that in the mid-80s, Coconino had such a band. It shrank after Sinagua High School opened, he said.

Danielle Bradley, who teaches Spanish at Flagstaff High School, said with two high schools, an advanced placement Spanish class is more likely to "go." Say there are 48 students across the district who are interested in advanced Spanish: with three high schools, she said that could split up to 16 students per school, and the class might not be offered. With two schools, that could break out to 24 students each, easily making a class section.

A group of parents is strongly advocating for the preservation of all three high schools, reconfigured as 7-12 campuses.

"It was a compelling presentation but I am not convinced it's what is best," Bradley said.

For parents and alumni, it was a mix of curricular and personal concerns.

Eva Barraza, whose son attends South Beaver Elementary -- one of the elementary schools on the short list for possible closure -- said the small magnet school is relatively inexpensive to run but has strong academics, is popular and boasts good attendance. She also questioned why most of the schools pegged for closure did not have higher percentages of minority and low-income students. (Schools up for possible closure include South Beaver, Thomas, Christensen, Flagstaff and Mount Elden middles, and Sinagua High.) Davina Twobears said South Beaver gave her and her sisters a solid education in the 1970s. Twobears' three children attended the school, as did her mother.

Now, Twobears, an anthropologist, is a Dartmouth and Northern Arizona University graduate and has recently been accepted into a doctoral program. She credited South Beaver.

The 75-year-old school is a part of Flagstaff's history, she said.

"We love that school. Please don't close it," she said. "Please."

STUDENTS DISSECT DATA

Flagstaff High School advanced placement statistics students took a closer look at the program priority ranking exercise district administrators have been working on this spring, with a critical eye toward just how valid the results were.

They took their concerns to the school board after spending weeks dissecting the data.

Among their concerns: the small overall sample size, that the results were not a random sampling, the "unusual" ranking structure, there was nonresponse bias in that not all surveys were returned, and the skew toward elementary school representation, given that FUSD has 12 elementary schools, and only six middle and high schools combined.

Overall, they found general agreement that some programs were more strongly preferred than others -- principals and most elementary programs versus Camp Colton, alternative education, and high school child care centers, for example. But they did note again the elementary school bias.

The administrators who formulated the survey did not appear to take umbrage at the students' research. Instead, they smiled and praised the teens for their work.

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