At Thursday’s public meeting, the new superintendent of the Alum Rock Union School District in San Jose said that seven schools should be closed and two should be merged.
A lot of people were at the meeting to say they didn’t agree with the plan.
The district says these closings are important, but a lot of people asked the board to think again. They say that schools are an important part of both the community and the education of the children.
“No one wants schools to be shut down. No one is going to say, “Let’s do this.” “This is our last option,” said Manny Barbara, who leads the Advisory Committee.
On Thursday night, parents, kids, and people from the community came together for a public hearing in the Alum Rock Union School District to talk about closing schools.
The district has a $20 million loss, according to German Cerda, the new superintendent. He says closing schools will help keep the district from being taken over.
“Aptitude Academy is a different school. The district will save $1.1 million right away because of it. The $8.2 million in unpaid maintenance has been put off. “It also has 400 students and not much room for growth,” Cerda said.
Cerda suggested closing seven campuses for good, merging two schools, and rebuilding one learning center. He says the plan will help 2,800 kids and cut in half the deficit.
Still, there was a lot of stress because some people didn’t like the plan.
“During my time in office, we did close two schools.” “There was no backlash, and there were no meetings like this where parents came in and cried because the community was involved in the decision,” said Kim Basil, who used to be on the ALRU Board.
“Why do we keep having this problem over and over again?” Emilei, who used to go to ALRU, said, “This shouldn’t have been going on for this long.”
Others were worried about safety and closing schools that had programs outside of school to keep kids busy.
“Some of the numbers they gave don’t make sense, so something else is going on.” Even though some schools have lower percentages, they are still open. “They’re in bad areas for our kids,” Jose said during the meeting.
The Alum Rock Union school board will keep having meetings until December 2, when they will vote. It’s due on December 16th for the district to give the Santa Clara County Office of Education its final plan.
