With continued academic woes and pressing budget concerns in mind, Richmond school administrators are asking the School Board to close Chandler Middle School.
A public forum to discuss the proposal starts today at 10 a.m. at the school.
The school has historical significance -- in 1960, it was the first city school to be integrated.
Why the recommendation to close the school?
Two reasons.
First, the school has failed to meet state and federal academic-achievement standards for the past seven years. If it fails again this year, and administrators believe it will, there will be four options. Of those, officials view shuttering the school as the only one worth pursuing.
Second, with a projected $16 million shortfall in the school budget and enough classroom capacity elsewhere to absorb Chandler's student body, this could be a way to save about $800,000.
What are the other options?
By state code, the city could turn Chandler into a charter school, replace the entire staff and keep trying, or ask the state to run the school.
Wouldn't those ideas work?
The public debate last year over a charter school at Patrick Henry Elementary School was so contentious that administrators won't even consider it.
A new staff doesn't guarantee better scores; the school has been through four principals in seven years.
No one wants the stigma of asking the state to take over, and there's no indication the state wants to do so.
When would it close?
The School Board could vote as early as Tuesday on closing Chandler. The last day of school is June 16.
Why can't Chandler pass?
That's a mystery to school officials. Henderson and Martin Luther King Jr. middle schools flank Chandler on the city's North Side and serve similar demographics. They succeeded while Chandler failed.
The lack of "sustained leadership, as well as consistency in staffing" could be the reason, said Dionne Ward, Richmond's executive director of secondary education. For the past nine years, she was principal at Henderson.
"When I got to Henderson, it was failing," she said. "It took several years to get us there."
By quickly building and then keeping her staff in place, Ward said, she was able to build leadership capacity. But the big benefit, she said, was that the staff became a team.
"I don't get the sense that happened at Chandler," she said.
Where will the students go?
The majority will go to King and Henderson, though some will be reassigned to Binford and Albert Hill.
Why now?
Because time is up, said Ward and Ronald Carey, the acting assistant superintendent responsible for administrative functions. While the system could prolong the decision, it wouldn't guarantee success.
"And if it fails next year, people will want to know why we didn't make this decision last year," Carey said.
What happened?
Carey said he's not sure. "It has everything every other middle school has," he said. And more, in some cases, as prolonged failure on the state level brought with it extra resources for more intensive programs.
The big problem, Carey and Ward said, has been the perception of failure. Once that set in, failure began feeding on itself.
"All of us as parents, we have one responsibility: our children," Carey said. "We want to give them the best life can offer. We ask, 'What can I do for my child?'"
Too often in Richmond, Carey and Ward said, the answer to that question has been, "Send my kid anywhere but Chandler."
What will happen to the building?
Nothing for now.
"We're not rushing out to make any decision on that," Carey said.
Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or zreid@timesdispatch.com.
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