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Val Cañez/TucsonSentinel.com
Principal Jon Ben-Asher is seen here at his school, Wrightstown Elementary, 8950 E. Wrightstown Road.
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- 3:32am — September 03, 2010
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Posted Mar 7, 2010, 4:54 pm
Wrightstown Elementary, one of Tucson’s oldest – and smallest – schools, could soon merge with Henry Elementary in a pioneering move prompted by drastic cuts in state education funding.
The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board is expected to vote on the merger of the East Side schools March 9.
Never in the 143-year history of TUSD, Arizona’s oldest school district, have any of its schools merged.
A handful of other schools also are considering the plan.
Parents at Steele Elementary voted overwhelmingly in February not to merge with Wheeler Elementary, said Maggie Shafer, TUSD's assistant superintendent of elementary schools. Both also are on the East Side, although much closer to midtown than Wrightstown and Henry.
Jessica Carlisle Markley, a member of the Wrightstown site council, voted along with the council majority for the merger with Henry. She said the school had had “multiple meetings with the community and families.” Surveys went out and the majority of feedback was in favor of the merger, she said.
She plans to use the situation as a life lesson for her two Wrightstown children, a daughter in third grade and a son in first.
“I have explained to my children that having to merge with another school is one curve out of many they will experience in life,” she said. “I am giving my children the reassurance that no matter where they may go to school, I will be involved with their education – making sure they are able to obtain the highest education possible.”
The mom said that whiled she knows her children will be sad to leave a building they have know their entire school career, “they both seem very excited to experience new things and look forward to having more friends” at a larger school.
She is “looking forward to our school staff having more support from one another, our children having more resources being that both schools will be together, and that the parents will be able to have our opinions heard about our children’s education as we go forward.”
She said it’s “a little sad” leaving a building that so much important history . . . but it's just a building. What’s inside, such as our students and teachers is what’s most important and we are taking all of the important stuff with us.”
TUSD's Shafer said there has been talk about blending Carson Middle School with Santa Rita High, making it a seventh-grade through 12-grade school, and letting area elementary schools keep the students who would have gone to Carson for sixth grade.
And those schools have room, she said.
Wrightstown, built in 1914, at 8950 E. Wrightstown Road, was one of four schools up for closure by TUSD in spring 2008. None closed, but Wrightstown Principal Jon Ben-Asher, said parents and area residents saw the writing on the wall.
“My sense was that many people in the Wrightstown community felt this was inevitable. It was voiced several times by parents and community members that it was time,” he said.
Ben-Asher said he didn’t believe TUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen or the members of the governing board want to close schools, but still “the Wrightstown community decided to take fate into its own hands instead of waiting to see what might happen in the future.”
The Wrightstown site council voted to merge with Henry 8-1, Ben-Asher said.
The benefits for mergers during the next school year are enticing.
TUSD will allow school budgets to be combined for three years, - five if the economy improves - make capital improvements to the school getting new students, and get utility savings of up to 35 percent from the school that closed, Ben-Asher said.
And, he said, “Wrightstown’s community still has a neighborhood school. Kids and families can grow up and attend schools with their friends and neighbors. Henry, in turn, has an opportunity to expand its attendance boundary and bring in more students now and in the long term.
“More kids and families mean more resources, more leadership, more energy, more good things for schools all the way around,” Ben-Asher said. “Where now we have two schools operating alone on a downward spiral of declining enrollment and resources, the future will see one school with a larger enrollment and more resources."
Still, he admitted, “school closure is a mournful event. I like to think that the Wrightstown history and traditions will live on in the new entity, but the building will cease to serve the community as a school the way that it has in the past."
“Tucson just doesn’t have many schools that have been operating on the same campus since 1914, so that’s a loss, too. It means a lot of letting go and a big change for many,” Ben-Asher said. “Henry will also transform. It won’t be the same either. So, in a sense, a loss will occur for both communities.”
But in the end, he said, this is an “amazing opportunity for rebirth” in response to changing demographics and resources.
“It’s a way to embrace the reality of today and be optimistic about the hope of tomorrow. I believe the new entity will emerge stronger than the two buildings were in the past and will be a well established, strongly based and supported elementary school.”
It may also mean that Ben-Asher will have only one school to go to each day next school year.
This school year and last, Ben-Asher has been principal at Wrightstown and nearby Henry, at 650 N. Igo Way. Dual principalships was one of the concessions made by the TUSD board after it voted down school closures two years ago.
With an enrollment hovering around 130, Wrightstown is the second smallest traditional elementary school in the district. Only Richey Elementary, at 103 students, is tinier. Jefferson Park Elementary, with its 145 students, is third, according to TUSD enrollment records based on the 40th day of school.
What would happen to Wrightstown, and any other school that would have its students merge into another school, is not entirely clear.
“This will be handled by our Engineering and Planning Department, said Shafer, who added: “We are committed to maintaining the grounds at the current standard.”
Shafer said school sites could be used for different needs within the district or they could be leased. The land also could be traded or sold “with the money returned to our taxpayers,” she said.
Once a school is closed it probably never will reopen as a TUSD school, said Shafer, who added she believes those officials considering consolidation looked closely at enrollment projections before making their decisions.
While there are positive monetary incentives for merging schools, there are some concessions.
On the negative side, consolidated schools could end up with “possibly larger class sizes,” Shafer said, “and I expect at the elementary level, more combination classrooms – grade levels combined with one teacher.”
The final consolidation date for schools has been a “moving target,” said Shafer, but she thought the governing board would hear any other proposed plans by late March or the April 13 board meeting “at the very latest.”
She said schools would need at least that much time to create a plan for transitioning students, staff and families. “And our facilities would have to make immediate plans for necessary capital improvements.”
If the board approves the Wrightstown-Henry merger on Tuesday, Ben-Asher said the schools would work on the transition during the fourth quarter this school year and the move would be completed during the summer.
Ben-Asher called the merger a “hard reality, but I think everyone’s curious about what the merger plan will look like and how we will transition together. We plan to work closely with our parents to develop the merger plan and transition.”
The principal sees both schools as pioneers in the merger process and hopes others will follow.
“The difficulty is convincing a community to move,” he said. “Any site would love to see another campus join it, and that’s where we started with our first attempt at Wrightstown. That’s a natural stance for a community to take.
“It’s a hard sell for schools that haven’t felt the pressure of closure or the urgency of the situation the way that the Wrightstown community has,” he said. “Even with our history, it took a lot of time and energy to bring the community to a point where it could make this kind of decision.”
He said, “If the public really understood what is truly happening to our public schools – and not blamed the leaders of those systems for the problem – then perhaps we’d see real change occur where it needs to happen."
“Arizona is 49th in the nation when it comes to funding students in our public schools and that is the problem that needs to be addressed if we are ever going to make real progress in this area,” he said. “In the meantime, our districts and neighborhood schools are left to fend for ourselves to deal with the outcome of these inadequacies.”
Principal Ben-Asher said that since the decision by both schools was made, they have conducted three joint site council meetings to develop a merge plan.
“We are working on a strong transitional program for students, families and staff, as well as tackling the details of moving instructional and capitol resources to Henry, such as the Prometean Boards and other technology from Wrightstown.”
This semester, there will be activities for Wrightstown students to get to know students and teachers from Henry. There also is work being done by both school councils to look at budget recourse allocations, he said.
“And we have sought input from parents and staff of both schools to understand what their priorities are for the merger plan as well as budget planning.”
Ben-Asher said he expects the board to accept the merger plan on Tuesday.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for both sites to pool resources and, in the long run, it will be a cost-savings for TUSD.”
Val Cañez/TucsonSentinel.com
Principal Jon Ben-Asher is seen here at his school, Wrightstown Elementary, 8950 E. Wrightstown Road.
1 comment on this story
School mergers are happening throughout the country. I guess we have to look at the benefits from the merge rather than focusing on the losses.The most important thing is to help the children ease the transition to the new school.