Possible Changes at 25 Rochester City Schools
By: Vanessa Herring
Updated: November 2, 2012
"We have aging facilities, a declining enrollment and increased cost, so we have to find ways to cut those costs to make sure that money is driven to the classroom," said Rochester City School Board President Malik Evans.
The ten year plan Superintendent Bolgen Vargas brought to the board Thursday night addresses all those issues.
If the plan is four schools will move to new buildings, numbers, 16, 22, 25, and 37, "those are facilities it doesn't mean some of the schools are closing the school programs are not closing in some of those situations," said Dr. Vargas.
The programs at schools number one and 10 will merge at school one after renovations are completed. An additional 12 elementary and six middle school buildings will be renovated at a cost of $625 million dollars.
Schools 30 and 36 would close for good because the buildings are ancient. Vargas says all the schools impacted just can't keep up with the needs of today's students, "you want to put certain technology in some of these buildings it's very difficult to do so because of the structure of the building, you know, they were built for a different era."
The school board has three months to review the plan and vote, "this is a draft proposal the board has not approved anything yet and we won't be approving anything until we see what the community has to say and have all the answers to the questions that we will be asking," said Evans.
There will be 16 public meetings over the next three months to gather input.
They will be held on the following dates:
November 5th (Neighbor Night at School #3)
November 13th
November 14th
November 26th (Parent Advisory Council)
December 13th
December 17th (Parent Advisory Council)
December 18th
January 12th (School Choice Expo)
January 16th
January 28th (Parent Advisory Council)
January 29th (State of our Schools)
February 7th
February 12
February 25th (Parent Advisory Council)
February 26th (Neighbor Night at School #36)
