Chandler Middle School will close

The Richmond School Board voted unanimously last night to close Chandler Middle School at the end of this school year.

The decision, although expected by most, was a disappointment to Brenda Barton and her daughter, Etta, a seventh-grader who will have to switch schools next fall.

"Children should not suffer," Barton said. "There are enough doors shutting on the kids."

School Board members expressed similar concerns minutes before the vote.

For the past seven years, Chandler, a 300-student school on East Brookland Park Boulevard in North Richmond, has failed to meet state and federal academic achievement standards.

"This is not a failure of the students," said Kimberly B. Gray, board vice chairwoman. "We've had seven years. It is a failure of us as adults."

But, she said, "every child in the city of Richmond deserves to go to an accredited school."

Closing Chandler will save the city about $800,000 per year.

Options for Chandler -- not considered viable by the board -- included continued restructuring of the school staff or turning Chandler into a charter school. Turning the school over to the state is not an option in Virginia.

The school has had four principals in seven years and high staff turnover. Its enrollment has dropped from 600 to 300 in recent years.

Richmond schools Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon recommended closing Chandler in late January because of low test scores and budgetary concerns. "This has been a painful decision," she said.

Brandon pledged to have transition teams go into Chandler and into elementary schools that would have fed into the middle school to discuss processes for the transition to other schools.

Thirteen people spoke at the second of two public forums yesterday to address Chandler's closing.

In the fall, Chandler students could be reassigned to Henderson, Martin Luther King Jr. and possibly Binford and Albert Hill middle schools with no overcrowding issues, school officials said.

The fate of the building has not been decided.

"It is important that the building not lie dormant," said Wendell Sams, Chandler's PTA president. Though disappointed the school will be closed, Sams said he would support moving Community High or another school into the building.

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