05/22/2007

School closing criteria set

By Christine Finger

cfinger@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Traverse City Area Public Schools board members established the criteria that will determine which elementary buildings close in coming years.

On Monday, the board discussed the process for identifying school closings before voting on the 10 standards that were based on public input, previous TCAPS school closings and analysis of processes used in other districts.

The list includes walkability, historical significance, current and projected enrollment, renovation costs, transportation implications, open enrollment figures and the number of students that would be displaced. Other items are proximity to public schools other than TCAPS, the value of property for other uses and the size and flexibility of the building and site for TCAPS purposes.

Board members voted unanimously to approve the criteria. Trustee Fred Tank was absent from Monday's meeting.

The board's action also protected six elementary schools from closure: Old Mission, Traverse Heights, Silver Lake, Westwoods, Courtade and Blair. Old Mission and Traverse Heights recently were reconstructed using bond funds and the other four schools are the newest of the district's 15 elementary buildings.

"We believe there's a lot of value there we can still capture,” said Superintendent James Feil.

The criteria will be applied to the nine elementary buildings still being considered for closure, and that data will be shared with the public for input at meetings at each school between May 31 and June 7. District administrators are tentatively slated to make closure recommendations to the board in July. No schools would be closed until the fall of 2008.

The decisions follow recommendations made by a 100-member steering committee that spent eight months developing a districtwide master plan that will reconfigure grades, redraw boundary lines and close up to three elementary schools.