Brevard County wants school closings halted, backs lawsuit

District lawyer: Selection process was unbiased

Brevard County commissioners sent a strong message Tuesday to the Brevard School Board and school Superintendent Brian Binggeli: The County Commission wants a halt to the school district’s plan to close three local schools to save money, and it supports local residents who filed a lawsuit Monday seeking an injunction to stop the closings.

The school board last month voted to close Clearlake Middle in Cocoa, Gardendale Elementary on Merritt Island and South Lake Elementary in Titusville at the end of the current school year as part of a cost-cutting effort.

The lawsuit, backed by the Florida Civil Rights Association, alleges that closing these schools would disproportionately affect low-income and minority students.

In its letter to Binggeli and School Board Chairwoman Barbara Murray, the County Commission said it “will be considering otherlegal options” at its March 19 meeting, and asked the school board to “take a step back, and reconsider the school closures in view of these recent events.”

The school district issued a statement Tuesday, indicating that “Brevard Public Schools is reviewing the filing with the 18th Circuit Court, and will comply with all legal proceedings as presented to the School Board.”

School district attorney Harold Bistline said in a statement that “we believe we have fully complied with all legal requirements in the decision to close Clearlake Middle School, Gardendale Elementary and South Lake Elementary. The process utilized was unbiased and based on capacity as determined by an analysis conducted by our Facilities Department. Issues such as minority status and free or reduced lunch calculations were not a part of the formula utilized to make these recommendations.”

The Rev. Glenn Dames Jr. of Titusville, who helped spearhead the lawsuit, said: “We’re ecstatic that the County Commission has voted to endorse the lawsuit filed by private citizens. It’s a wonderful victory, and it brings closer to what we desire, which is for the school board to stop, look and listen, and we hope that they will take this seriously.”

Dames, senior pastor of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Titusville, said the commission’s action will help make the public more aware that “our children deserve a voice. Today, the county commissioners sent a strong signal ... that they are serious about this. It’s not an issue that is going away. Today, I think, the county commissioners said all children matter in Brevard County.”

The vote to send the letter was 3-1, with Commissioner Trudie Infantini opposed and Chairman Andy Anderson absent. While supporting the lawsuit in principle, it did not have the four votes needed to approve either joining the lawsuit or filing its own suit.

Parents react to possible school closings and teacher cutbacks

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT)- "I think that it's ridiculous and I don't know what happening to this school system and it seems like it's deteriorating minute by minute," said Emily Walker.

Emily Walker has two children who attend Center Street Middle School. It is on the list for possible closure. Walker wants the school to stay open.

"Both of my girls are honor roll students, they're active in sports and I went here also so I know the learning process is extravagant," mentioned Walker.

The Birmingham School Board plans to bus Center Street students to Richard Arrington Jr. Middle School as well as Carver High School. Transportation to and from school will become an nightmare for Walker.

"It's kind of heartbreaking because right now I'm a nursing student. I don't know how the bus system is going to run or anything like that," mentioned Walker.

As of right now, from Emily Walker's home to Center Street Middle School, it takes her children two and half miles to get there. But if that school closes, the amount of time and mileage it takes to get Arrington Middle school will change.

She will have to add at least another mile and a half onto her trip.

Parents at Arrington Middle are also unhappy with the consolidation plans.

"The teachers, they also have a whole lot on them now, and I'm kind of worried if they don't have the one on one classroom time with the children that are here, what are the possibilities of them getting that," mentioned Angela Walton.

If the plan goes through, there will be a need for more buses. The school board plans to purchase more.

The Birmingham City Schools released the following information:

The plan calls for consolidating and reconfiguring schools across the district:

•Carver and Woodlawn high schools would add seventh and eighth grades in a school-with-a-school model. Students in the seventh and eighth grades would be in separate areas of the schools with separate staffs and administrations.

•Center Street Middle School would close, with students moving to Arrington Middle School and Carver.

•Councill Elementary School would consolidate with Bush Middle School to create a K-8 school.

•Daniel Payne Middle School would close, with sixth-graders moving to South Hampton Elementary School and seventh- and eighth-graders going to Carver.

•Hemphill Elementary School would close, with students moving to Jackson Elementary School and West End Academy.

•Norwood Elementary School would close, and students would attend Phillips Academy.

•Putnam Middle School would close, and students would move to Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School and Woodlawn.

•North Roebuck Elementary School would close and relocate to the Martha Gaskins Middle School building. Martha Gaskins students would go to Smith and Ossie Ware Mitchell middle schools.

•Avondale Elementary School, Barrett Elementary School, Hayes K-8 School, Hudson K-8 School, Inglenook K-8 School, Oliver Elementary School and South Hampton Elementary School would become K-6 schools.

•The new Oxmoor K-8 School would open this summer as a K-5 school.

•Kennedy Alternative School would be closed and the program would be moved to the Daniel Payne Middle School building.

The proposal also includes a reduction in force, which would result in the loss of 133 positions across the district, 108 in schools and 30 in central offices. Those positions in schools would include 15 Child Nutrition Program workers, 10 teacher assistants, 17 clerical workers, two bookkeepers, 13 custodians, 15 teachers, seven principals, 15 assistant principals, seven counselors and seven library media personnel.

Central office positions that would be eliminated would include four program specialists, three clerical workers, one bookkeeper, five custodians, three data entry technicians, one director/assistant director and eight maintenance employees.

The total savings projection from the plan totals $8,018,786.21.

Copyright 2013 WIAT-TV CBS 42

Plenty of school closings following overnight snowfall

LANSING — Dozens of school districts in the Lansing region are closed today following a night of snowfall.

Public schools in Lansing, St. Johns, Bath, Dansville, Mason, Okemos, Webberville, Stockbridge, Haslett, Owosso, East Lansing, Waverly, Charlotte, Ovid-Elsie, Pewamo-Westphalia and pretty much everywhere else are closed today, according to local television reports.

Light snow is expected through the rest of today.

The University of Michigan-Flint called off classes and activities scheduled for Wednesday. Mott Community College in Flint also canceled Wednesday classes. In the Detroit area, Oakland University and campuses of Oakland Community College closed.

Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant delayed operations until noon Wednesday due to the weather.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ambler parents take part in national hearing on school closures

By Eric Devlin
edevlin@montgomerynews.com

The U.S. Secretary of Education held a national community hearing in Washington, D.C., to discuss a rising number of school closings across the country in low-income areas that contain a higher population of minority groups.

Elizabeth Wahl-Kunzier and Amy Joyce, representing Mattison Avenue Elementary School and the Ambler community, attended the event.

An anonymous source recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education regarding the Wissahickon School Board’s recent decision to close Mattison Avenue, citing the decision as discriminatory against the Hispanic population in Ambler. The complaint said the district discriminated against the Hispanic community because it failed to provide effective methods of communication to Hispanic parents at the school who are limited in English proficiency. The district denied such allegations.

Wahl-Kunzier and Joyce attended the hearing and testified before Education Secretary Arne Duncan on behalf of their community after they were invited by a group known as Journey for Justice. Wahl-Kunzier said she and Joyce had worked all of last summer looking for ways to try to save Mattison Avenue and, through various connections, came in contact with Daniel DelPielago of the group known as Empower D.C., who invited them to attend the hearing with the rest of the members of Journey for Justice from across the country. She said it felt inappropriate to ask a number of people to come with them considering many of the members of Journey for Justice had been planning the trek to D.C. for months and they were asked to attend very late in the game.

Approximately 500 students, parents and community representatives representing 18 cities across the country gathered at the Department of Education building in Washington to testify and hope to see some type of intervention at the federal level.

Wahl-Kunzier and Joyce said they spoke with Assistant Secretary (Acting) Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Civil Rights Seth Galanter, who gave them the contact information for director of the OCR Philadelphia Office, Wendella Fox. They were told she would look into the Ambler situation. They said they were told the DOE would continue to investigate the situation with the Wissahickon School District and ultimately it has final say on all school closures. They were further told the DOE “could provide a remedy to the situation [in Ambler],” but were not given specifics as to what that remedy might be. The DOE also did not provide a timeline as to when the investigation would end and when any potential help may take place.

Regarding the Wissahickon complaint, Wahl-Kunzier and Joyce said they were hopeful to find a solution considering the information they received at the hearing.

After the nearly two-hour hearing ended, they joined the crowd and marched to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial where a candlelight vigil was held.

Cities all across the country, including Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Newark, Detroit and Oakland, have filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights citing the closing of schools and the criteria and methods for administering those actions as discriminatory toward low-income, minority communities.

Facing 37 school closures throughout the city, the Philadelphia City Council voted 14-2 in favor of a nonbinding resolution put forward by the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, calling for a one-year moratorium on school closings Wahl-Kunzier said she wondered “whether [Wissahickon] will stand by their children. They really do need to help beyond just parent volunteers. They do need help [with the minority population].” She said the district “can’t cut kids off because their parents don’t speak English.”

Wahl-Kunzier said she was amazed as she listened to the complaints from the hundreds of different people in attendance for the hearing, because they were “the exact same thing, word for word,” as to what the defenders of Mattison Avenue had been arguing. Many of the schools were also very similar to Mattison Avenue, she said, noting they were small community-based schools and by closing these schools it was “like taking a second home from [those students].”

Wahl-Kunzier said they were given contact information of a number of different groups fighting to keep their schools open across the country.

“This is a microcosm of a national issue,” she said.

Drivers be warned: Fog could reduce visibility this morning

Roads are a mess: Clinton Hameline, of Precision Lawncare in Flint, spent the morning today plowing the parking lots of automotive suppliers in Sterling Heights.
From: http://www.freep.com

Fog in southeast Michigan could drop visibility to a quarter-mile, the National Weather Service said this morning. 

The fog is expected to last until about 11 a.m.

About 16,000 DTE customers were without power at 9 a.m., according to the company. DTE reported 13,000 customers without power overnight, which dipped to 1,000 customers as of 6 a.m., according to DTE. 

A mix of snow and freezing rain closed hundreds of schools and left roads a mess early today, but a warm spell is in store for metro Detroit today and Tuesday.

All winter weather advisories and warnings ended at 6 a.m, according to the National Weather Service. But icy road conditions closed school across metro Detroit, including the Detroit Public Schools, Eastern Michigan University and many others. Classes at EMU are scheduled to resume as scheduled at 12:30 p.m.

“Temperatures are climbing above freezing, so it’s over now,” National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Richter said from the agency’s White Lake Township office just after 6 a.m. “We’re going to have a nice warming trend – nice but brief.”

The storm left 13,000 DTE Energy customers without power overnight, but service was restored to all but about 1,000 by 6 a.m. today, DTE spokesman Scott Simons said.

Simons also said that a substation problem in Waterford this morning is responsible for an outage affecting about 6,000 people.

The ice and snow is expected to start melting today as temperatures rise to the mid- to upper-40s by this afternoon, Richter said. The expected high is 47 degrees, with a 50% to 60% chance of rain this morning, increasing to a 70% chance of rain tonight and all day Tuesday. Tonight’s low will only drop to 43 degrees before temperatures soar to 57 degrees on Tuesday with a 90% chance of rain, Richter said.

“Normal high is 32, so you’re talking 25 degrees above normal in late January,” Richter said. “That is impressive.”

Temperatures then dive back down starting on Wednesday, when a high around 48 becomes a low of 22 Wednesday night. Thursday’s high is only expected to be 24 degrees – with an overnight low of 12 then a high on Friday of 19 degrees, he added.