Slater community feels the heat Slater community feels the heat (January 21, 2005)

District will announce 2 schools under consideration for closure

By Julie O'Shea

Although a decision still won't be made for another two weeks, Slater Elementary parents and teachers are convinced Mountain View-Whisman's school closure task force has a target on their campus.

However, no school has been publicly named yet and won't be until Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. At that time, district officials will release the names of the two elementary schools being considered for closure.

Superintendent Eleanor Yick will then choose one of the two. She will announce her recommendation during a special meeting on Jan. 27, and the school board will cast the final vote to close one school on Feb. 3.

For the last three weeks, the school closure task force, which consists of parents, teachers and administrators, has deliberated behind closed doors.

Members of the Slater community, however, are sure they already know what the decision will be, and packed the task force's public comment segment of its last meeting Tuesday night in protest.

"I feel like I am part of a village. We need our school to stay open," said Kym Wenneberg, who has a daughter in the second grade at Slater. "We need to give our children the opportunity for an education. ... Keep our school in our community."

A few task force members publicly expressed some reservations Tuesday night.

Julie Wilkinson, a Bubb parent who sits on the task force, questioned what would happen if the district decided to shut down a school with a popular "magnet program." Slater is the site of PACT (Parent-Child-Teacher), a parent-participation program unique to the campus that has attracted families from other districts.

Mountain View-Whisman officials promised the program would be moved to another campus if Slater closes.

Wilkinson thinks this may be a mistake. "I think that relocating a magnet program without having the principal participants involved in that decision process is not giving that program the true value it deserves," she read in a prepared statement at Tuesday's meeting.

Another task force member, Slater parent Leo Wilkes, implored administrators to find ways to cut their budget before they shut down a school.

"I would argue against closing any school," Wilkes said.

But district leaders have repeatedly said there is nothing left to cut. Closing a campus will bring in an estimated $350,000 a year if the school board decides to lease it out. District officials said a combination of low enrollment and financial problems leaves them no other option but to close a school.

More than 100 Slater parents, teachers and students marched along Whisman Road on Monday with signs reading "Keep Our School Open." The group walked 1.9 miles to Landels Elementary, the closest school to Slater, to demonstrate the impact a school closure would have on low-income families without cars.

"There (are) so many people who depend on Slater being open," said Cheryl Brummitt, who teaches kindergarteners and first-graders at the school. "They are worried. They are really, really worried."

Brummitt added: "I think we are seeing this level of concern about it being Slater because it is so dire that it not be Slater."

District officials said school buses will be available to transport the displaced students to their new campus, regardless of which school gets closed.

Lisa Levin, the mother of a Slater first-grader and a co-organizer of Monday's march, said closure rumors have been flying around the school community for days now. Levin said parents walked away from a recent school closure task force meeting that was open to the public with the distinct feeling that Slater would be the campus picked. Levin said she didn't know what was specifically said that made parents so agitated.

"We have a huge fear," she said.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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