EAST LANSING — In case you think that fans of Red Cedar Elementary are at a loss for words over the possible closing of the school ... Scott Harrison, a dad who lives on Lilac Avenue, sent me 2,000-plus words on the subject.
In his “Analysis and Perspective on ELPS Elementary and Middle School Configuration,” Harrison writes:
“In this report, I seek to constructively question the basis for decision-making in our community. Since disputable statements have been made in the course of the decision-making process, and since the interests of children, diversity and multiculturalism are at issue, I beg our school board leaders to again re-evaluatetheir pending … decision. I pray for their wisdom.”
In case you're interested:
Analysis and Perspective on ELPS Elementary and Middle School Configuration Summary I do not think the East Lansing Public School (EPLS) Board should close any schools, but if that is the commitment, the dialogue so far has made Glencairn and Red Cedar Elementary Schools appear to be the finalists. I hope that Dr. Chapin (superintendent) and the seven school board members will continue to listen to the experiences, perspectives and analyses of their constituents during this urgent moment in the history of our shining city of the midwest, East Lansing. My wife and I have three children. Two go to Red Cedar Elementary. The other child is an infant. We bought (and extensively renovated) a house in East Lansing 8 years ago. Judging by the many other young families with children who have moved into our neighborhood (and renovated their homes as well), the area surrounding Red Cedar Elementary continues to be a vibrant option for families with children. As you will read in this report, the data support the vibrancy of this area for families with children, and as its being an essential cornerstone for the overall city. In this report, I seek to constructively question the basis for decision-making in our community. decision-making process, and since the interests of children, diversity and multiculturalism are at issue, I beg our school board leaders to again re-evaluate their pending September 26 decision.
City Regions and Data Sources; Defining the “RESIDENT” Population Red Cedar Positively Impacts the City w/ the Highest Ratio of Children under the Age of 5 “Guiding Principles” and Concerns about a Potential for Conflict of Interest Relocating Diversity; “Movement” of City Population; The Question of Property Value Do we follow Population Change, or Reinvigorate Growth? Facts and Erratum; Acknowledgements and Final Comment City Regions and Data Sources City Regions, North of Saginaw Highway: Pinecrest region West of Abbott Rd Whitehills/Donley region East of Abbott Rd City Regions, South of Saginaw Highway: Glencairn/Marble region Red Cedar/University region Data Sources: City of East Lansing, Department of Planning and Community Development U.S. Census Bureau ELPS Main Office & other hyperlinks shown throughout this document. Defining the “RESIDENT” Population All numbers shown here are based on students who are “resident in the school district.” The ELPS district extends beyond our city limits to the northeast and, in some respects, specifically supports a small portion of Meridian township via Donley, the 6th (newest) elementary school whose adjoining neighborhoods are also in Meridian township. The school district, in its documents, has referred to “RESIDENT” children as being those whose residences are within the school district zone. This “RESIDENT” population does not include the many School of Choice families from Okemos, Meridian Township and Lansing (School of Choice families comprise 20% of the enrollments). Red Cedar Positively Impacts the City w/ the Highest Ratio of Children under the Age of 5 Table 1. children (0 to 17 years), based on U.S. Census Data for 2010. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! North of Saginaw Highway ! ! South of Saginaw Highway ! ! The comparison that specifically evaluates the ratio of number of children under the age of 5 to the total number of children is intended to be a comparison does not answer all questions, but it does meaningfully help to address specific questions such as: specific areas of the city? Elementary school closing has occurred in part due to the high level of young children now within the residential neighborhoods adjoining Red Cedar Elementary. A normalized ratio within each region (Table 1) helps to objectively compare regions, by a direct treatment of baseline differences occurring across all the regions. This helps to better avoid confounding factors and unwarranted assumptions that would creep into the more superficial comparisons that could be done between the very different neighborhoods in our city. Many of the Red Cedar Elementary parents are first-time parents, and are international. Red Cedar Elementary parents are expected to have the lowest percentage of car ownership in comparison to the sets of parents from other elementary schools. Some of these parents have never driven a car before. A question of concern is: travel the farthest in our ELPS community? In response to this concern, allegedly, someone has indicated that: can find their way to Glencairn “Guiding Principles” and Concerns about a Potential for Conflict of Interest The “guiding principles” an August 2011 news report ( east_lansing_school_board_pres.html ), chiefly involve how: “renovated buildings will make East Lansing's schools and communities ʻ
more
competitive for new families ʼ
looking to relocate.” [Brandon Howell, MLive.com, August 30, 2011] This is an understandable point of concern for these two school board members, since only their own Glencairn/Marble region in which they live has experienced a total population loss (-5.4%; see Table 2). Table 2. ! ! ! ! ! ! North of Saginaw Highway ! ! South of Saginaw Highway ! ! Much of the population loss in the Glencairn/Marble region, including school-age children (ages 5 to 17 years) involves the west-side of the Glencairn/Marble region. For the census tract where the Glencairn school site is located, the decline has been staggering in relationship to resident school-age children (-29.6%, from 2000 to 2010). An adjoining census tract to this Glencairn site experienced a -54.8% change in resident children from 2000 to 2010. By comparison, the Red Cedar/University region has had a -45% change in resident school-age children. This may be explained by the demolition of Cherry Lane Apartments. children in the Glencairn region are unknown, and could be explored further with a focused community survey on the issue. Potential for conflict of interest, It is within walking distance to Glencairn Elementary, that several school board members reside (0.2 to 0.4 miles). The newly built Glencairn school is envisioned to have a wider range of grade offerings, and benefit further from the mandated inclusion of students currently going to the Red Cedar Elementary. In the school board vote leading up to the September 8 resolution, neighborhood, voted for their own Glencairn Elementary School, and against Red Cedar Elementary School board member who resides in the Donley area (Meridian township, northeast of the City of East Lansing). Relocating Diversity A concept to the 4-3 decision has been that, following the Red Cedar Elementary School going off-line in 2016-2017, Red Cedar Elementary students and faculty will be transported to Glencairn. The Donley area school board member (Biddle) commented: ʻ “I donʼ
t believe that what people love about Red Cedar is about bricks and
mortar but rather the experience,” Biddle said. “I have great confidence that our faculty, our staff and our families can embrace a celebration of cultures in a new location.”
ʼ [Lauren Gibbons, State News, September 11, 2011] There has been an outpouring of concern about this statement (for instance, see the video archive of September 19 public hearing at http://elps.k12.mi.us/education/dept/dept.php?sectionid=198 ).
In response, faculty, staff and families have gone on record saying that they love the “bricks and mortar” (and specific location) of Red Cedar Elementary. Essential physical advantages to the Red Cedar site were touted by citizens as: • the integrity of the current structure; • quality of land (per the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, greater than other school sites); • quantity of land (acreage is the largest in the city limits); • excellent location to the university campus; and • comparative safety in terms of drop-off and pick-up of children. It is difficult to understand how these advantages are to be reconstructed at Glencairn. An additional “bricks and mortar” vantage point comes from Tower Pinkster, an architectural firm hired for consulting on this project by the ELPS. For the purpose of major renovations to the six different elementary school sites, Red Cedar Elementary School ranked #3. Glencairn Elementary School and White Hills Elementary School were ranked #5 and #6 respectively. http://school.elps.k12.mi.us/k-8_forum/rankings&reco.pdf Finally, it was emphatically stated by multiple citizens at the September 19 forum for public comment (and I paraphrase/summarize): After hundreds of years of American history, isn multiculturalism is tired of being relocated for the convenience of a demographic majority? East Lansing tarnished by a movement of students and faculty to Glencairn. This would amount to: a non-consensual movement of the multicultural population to a site lacking the architectural advantages of Red Cedar Elementary school; and children from foreign countries being displaced from their parent(s), many of whom work at MSU. “Movement” of City Population As a justification for the closure of Red Cedar, a statement was recently made to the news media that the movement of the City of East Lansing population is northward. As reported in the news: http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/ Some_Call_Closing_Red_Cedar_Path_of_Least_Resistance_130160348.html "Our population is moving North. Our population is not moving South. Red Cedar's our southern most school," said Superintendent Dave Chapin. [ A more accurate and specific statement about the northward population change would be: the loss of school-age children is occurring from the neighborhoods surrounding both Glencairn and Red Cedar Elementary schools are located south of Saginaw Highway); and new housing in the Pinecrest and Whitehills/Donley regions was built several years ago, including “portable” classrooms to handle increased enrollment - but the area is completely built up now, and evidence has not been presented that that young families will gravitate there. An additional factor to be considered involves the university. As far as I know, MSU is not planning on relocating its entire campus within our city limits. Also, as far as I know, child-bearing adults with jobs at MSU is a phenomenon that will still continue, and remains a powerful force for the ongoing presence of families within Red Cedar/ University region. I am unaware of any major survey being conducted among East Lansing citizens that asks the community about such a primary issue of “where live?” relevant to the context of decision-making. Rather, in one major survey (online poll) that was conducted among the full breadth of East Lansing, citizens were asked to envision elementary school attributes for an abstract school that might be built anywhere - El Paso, Boston, Las Vegas or Detroit. http://school.elps.k12.mi.us/k8_facilities_forum/expanded_community_survey_summary.pdf Glencairn Elementary remains a potential site for closure. neighborhoods surrounding Glencairn Elementary will likely find however that the Red Cedar region residents want to help Glencairn restore its vitality, and help to keep the Glencairn neighborhood school open. To their credit, many Glencairnlocated and other residents of the City of East Lansing want to help the Red Cedar/University region remain vital and for its Red Cedar Elementary school to remain open. six elementary schools could be preserved, even though it comes at a challenging financial cost. The Question of Property Value To quote from a document, “faq.pdf” posted on the ELPS web site, following the August 17 public comment session: 12. If a school is repurposed for an alternative use, will the value of nearby property be decreased? There is a difference between gross outcome and net outcome. The statement “values and assessments have changed in recent years, without changes to the ELPS elementary schools” refers to a gross outcome (involving factors and variables different than school closing). The issue at hand concerns a net outcome due to school closing. There is a wealth of data and existing literature that is clear on the fact that there will be negative impacts on property values due to a nearby school being closed (e.g., 7%-10%). Citations are easy to find, but it should be the responsibility of the ELPS main office to more diligently address the issue of potential changes in property value. Furthermore, residents and the City Council also have expressed concern about increased potential for neighborhood blight, an area of concern that is not addressed by the above statement, but a phenomenon real to the City of East Lansing. In terms of alternative use, the ELPS school board has suggested that perhaps there will be: 1) some provision for using half of the not-to-be-renovated structure for some educational needs, and 2) having the ELPS administration occupy the other half (far away from most all other schools in the community). This, along with all of the news media attention to the potential closing of Red Cedar Elementary, does not seem to be a recipe for enticing new residents with young children into the neighborhoods surrounding the Red Cedar Elementary School. An extensive amount of time and effort has gone into challenging the “it will be fine” outlook to keeping all six schools open. The response above, and the timeline for final decision, do not reflect a similar level of critical concern for the health of those neighborhoods being affected by a potential closure of Red Cedar Elementary School. Do we follow Population Change, or Reinvigorate Growth? Do we follow Population Change? In my opinion, much of the current proposal has related to this perspective: 1) population movement in the City of East Lansing is northward; and 2) area(s) left with a decreasing population should not have an elementary school. As discussed in this document, a northward “movement” (or general change) of the population might be inferred from the U.S. Census Data when comparing the loss of school-age children south of Saginaw Highway, affecting both the Red Cedar/University and Glencairn/Marble regions. A comparison between the elementary schools that are south of Saginaw Highway would be more informative than a multi-way comparison between all 6 schools. Do we reinvigorate Population Growth? Several school board members have endorsed “guiding principles” - chiefly that the proposed rebuilding of all elementary schools will help make East Lansing communities more competitive for new families. If this recipe for population growth of school-age children is to be applied, the pricey question arises as to which regions would benefit most from rebuilding their elementary schools. Since the neighborhoods surrounding Red Cedar and Glencairn Elementary Schools are in greatest need for a reinvigorated school-age population growth, should these specific sites be prioritized for the rebuilding of competitively attractive schools? Facts and Erratum Additional facts as concern the September 8, 2011 proposal http://school.elps.k12.mi.us/k-8_forum/resolution.pdf • The proposal would relocate the teaching of children of the most diverse, multicultural constituency in our city. A survey has not been conducted of this specific consituency. This decision separates foreign children in our city from their parents for longer periods of the day. • The multicultural constituency in our city includes international MSU student-parents who do not have cars. The proposal results in this constituency having their children transported farthest in comparison to the demographic majority. Erratum: Due to error outside of my control in the data collection (I appears that the 44.90 census tract data was shifted to the 44.03 census tract. We have had more babies and kids in area surrounding Red Cedar Elementary, not less, over the past ten years at our residential properties in the Red Cedar/University region. At the time of this writing, the ELPS main office is adding additional census data to its websites. Acknowledgements and Final Comment I commend Superintendent Chapin and the seven board members for stating some of their rationale to the public, and for putting forward a specific plan. This allows for a real debate to occur, and has enabled me to develop this response. These dedicated members of our community have spent hundreds of hours politely listening to citizen commentary and concern. I hope that the final outcome does justice to their presumably good intentions and extraordinary level of service. Sadly, without further deliberation, the final outcome to be voted on this September 26, 2011 may be truly embarrassing to the values of our city and damaging to the goals of good governance. I thank the City of East Lansing Department of Planning and Community Development, for their Herculean work with the U.S. Census Data, and the ELPS main office with courteous responses to help provide answers I have sought to these challenging questions. I also thank everyone who has (or will soon be) sharing their perspectives on this document. In turn, I hope all may realize that it idly by when others would otherwise suffer. I hope that we may all continue with an open channel for communication. This is hard to determine. Values and assessments have changed in recent years,
without changes to the ELPS elementary schools. It depends, too, on the agreed-upon alternative use. Meridian Township reported to the Board of Education on 5/19 that property values were not impacted after schools were closed in Meridian Township in the recent past.
-Scott Harrison
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