By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at 11:02 AM
As was expected, the St. Louis School Board voted last night to move the students and staff of Cleveland NJROTC High School to Pruitt Middle School. They also voted to approve a proposal to work with the newly formed group dedicated to raising private funds to repair and upgrade Cleveland with the goal of eventually bringing the students back. Labels: Schools
The resolution, proposed by board member Bill Purdy, also directed the district to continue to provide basic maintenance and security to Cleveland after relocation so that the building is not vandalized and does not fall further into disrepair.
Purdy's resolution replaced one approved earlier in the meeting which was submitted by Superintendent Creg Williams. Williams' proposal also moved the students out of Cleveland for the 2006-2007 school year, but it did not address what SLPS was going to do with the building once empty.
Board members Ron Jackson and Bob Archibald said they believed that the issue of repairing Cleveland should not be considered seperate from the numerous aging buildings owned by the district, each with their own structural and maintenance-related problems.
Archibald added that he believes the district still has too many schools for the number of students it serves. "We really need to have seventysome schools, not ninetysome," he said. He suggested that Cleveland be included in a broader discussion held over the next three months on how to address the district's infrastructure problems.
Several people addressed the board on the issue of preserving the 93 year-old building, including Alderman Craig Schmid; attorney Matt Ghio, a board member of Landmarks Association which has joined the Alliance to Save Cleveland High; and Travis Reems, also a member of the Alliance. See videos:
The board approved the measure with Archibald, Jackson, and Board President Veronica O'Brien voting against it.
Click here to download Purdy's resolution.
6 Comments:
The Board majority's priorities are clearly screwed up! With the massive budget crisis facing the SLPS, why on earth should the Board waste any effort in raising private funds or dedicating public ones to saving a deteriorated building that, at best, was only partially occupied? It's fine to be all sentimental about Cleveland High, but its demise as a school could have given it an opportunity for rebirth as condos or some multi-use development, yielding handsome sale proceeds for SLPS. That the Board let itself get caught up in the lack of vision rampant in this South City community, to the extent that it lost sight of its looming financial problems, is just damn sad.
I'll be glad when the State Dept. of Ed steps in and takes over control of the SLPS; they surely can't do any worse than these elected clowns.
6/15/2006 9:03 AM
Since academic performance of the students and fiscal health of the district now rank below teachers' and aldermen's demands, no matter what the cost or impact on students with this new majority, it will fortunately be only a matter of time before the state swoops in.
6/15/2006 9:11 AM
St. Louis Public Schools' decision to work with the Alliance to Save Cleveland High costs the district nothing. The responsibilty to raise funds is completely in the hands of the Alliance and the surrounding community.
The only thing that the district will pay for under Bill Purdy's resolution is the cost of securing the building once it is closed and keeping the minimum of electricty going so the place won't be dark (which is attractive to vandals), and some heat on in the winter so the pipes don't freeze.
Both of those are things that any responsible property owner should do so that their building doesn't, at best, further depreciate in value through further neglect or vandalism or, at worst, become a crack house and home to other criminal activity -- which has happened to other closed SLPS properties.
Besides that, it costs the district nothing to allow the community the chance to succeed or fail in saving something which they say they value.
6/15/2006 9:40 AM
OK, so they save the building at minimal cost to SLPS; then what comes next? Once the "community" has saved Cleveland H.S., how long does the SLPS have to maintain the building before coming to grips with making the decision to sell it to a private developer? What's the long range plan here, or is there only a short-range goal of quieting public dissent by keeping the building under SLPS control?
6/15/2006 2:04 PM
The long term plan is to USE IT AS A SCHOOL!
If they can update a warehouse into lofts then they can update a school to be a school.
Their are currently schools that are over crowded in the district! So fixing up a large school that is geograficaly easy to get to makes sense.
I think it is high time our corperat citizens like Erickson and Enterprise put money into the infrastructure, fixing schools, instead of campagnes of people like Bufford and Clinkscale
6/15/2006 3:48 PM
Wow. I didn't know that Landmarks Association still cared about saving old buildings. Where have they been lately?
6/16/2006 11:35 AM
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