Silver Street supporters in Floyd County prepare for one last push before public hearings startBy TARA HETTINGER
Tara.Hettinger@newsandtribune.com
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Those with Friends of Silver Street Elementary gathered around a table Monday night along with Mayor Doug England and New Albany City Councilman Pat McLaughlin to come up with a game plan for these final days.
The Resources for Results committee, which has the task to better allocate the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated Schools Corporation’s resources, will be hosting public hearings starting April 2 for people to hear what the group has discovered during its nearly three years of research.
The group, which was created by Superintendent Dennis Brooks, will come up with a recommendation(s) after the three public hearings to present to the superintendent. Brooks would then decide what to recommend to the school board, which would take a vote whether to implement any changes.
Ideas that have come up in previous committee notes leaked to The Tribune include redistricting throughout the corporation and/or closing either Pine View or Silver Street elementary schools among other ideas.
Norma Condra, FOSSE member and co-president of Silver Street’s PTO, said she’s worried the public will not hear any specifics on possible recommendations until the day the board votes whether to approve it.
“I’m afraid that a recommendation will be passed and approved in a vacuum,” she said at FOSSE’s meeting Monday.
So, the group is trying to make the members’ voices heard.
“The bottom line is that we don’t want any school closed,” Brandi Tabeling, FOSSE vice-president, said.
The group talked about problems that could happen if Silver Street was to close, such as diminished property values and having to go to a school that has not reached “exemplary” status per Public Law 221.
They hope to spread their message via flyers, which they plan to distribute to more than 1,000 people in New Albany.
“I hope that we can get people out there to come to the meetings to express their concerns,” Tabeling added.
At the public hearings, people will get to see a PowerPoint presentation prepared by the Resources for Results committee. Tabeling said she has tried to get a hold of information that will be shown so that she can be prepared with questions, but was turned down.
“At this point, we’re at their mercy. We don’t know what they are going to present,” she told the group.
So, the group plans to have members at each of the three meetings, so that they can ask questions and present their own facts and figures.
“We have to make our voices heard at these public meetings,” Tabeling said. “A vote will likely be taken at a school board meeting the same day Brooks makes a recommendation.”
England told the group that he supports their cause and plans to attend one of the hearings. He said a representative from his office will try to go to the others.
“If you don’t quit hollering and if you don’t quit screaming, you’re going to get run over,” England told the group.
He added that the school needing upgrades, such as ADA accessibility, is no excuse to close it. He said the Carnegie Center, in New Albany, also needed that, so an elevator was added to the side of the building.
To help show how many people support FOSSE, the group also plans to show the committee a petition, with more than 1,000 signatures, of people who want Silver Street to remain open.
As much as the group is trying to plan ahead, Tabeling said there is no preparing for what recommendation may be passed on to the board.
“I think anything is possible. The Resources for Results committee has left the door open,” she said. “I don’t think they have ruled out anything. I think [closing a school] is definitely a possibility.”
IF YOU GO
• WHAT: Resources for Results public hearings
• WHO: Everyone is invited. People may come to multiple meetings.
• WHEN/WHERE: From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., April 2 (Hazelwood Middle School), April 8 (Scribner Middle School) and April 14 (Highland Hills Middle School)
WHAT IS PUBLIC LAW 221?
• Public Law 221 (P.L. 221) is Indiana’s comprehensive accountability system for K-12 education. Passed by the legislature in 1999 with broad bipartisan backing and the support of the business and education communities, the law aimed to establish major educational reform and accountability statewide.
To measure progress, P.L. 221 places Indiana school corporations and schools into one of five categories based upon “improvement” and “performance” data from the ISTEP+
Performance is rated on the percentage of all students who pass the state’s English and math ISTEP+ tests (averaged across subjects and grade levels).
Improvement measures the change in the percentage of same students passing the test over a three-year period.
Also, schools not making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for two consecutive years can place no higher than the “Academic Progress” category.
SOURCE: INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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