Two City Schools May Close

Bursting into tears and pounding vehemently on tables, Cambridge elementary school parents and teachers protested a dramatic school closure plan that district leaders offered last night as the final solution to their most painful and pressing problem.

After months of wrangling over proposals that would combine schools to save money and fill empty classroom seats, Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D’Alessandro for the first time proposed closing elementary schools outright, dismantling their administrations and discarding their educational programs.

The plan would close the Harrington and Fitzgerald Schools, which the state recently labeled as under-performing, and offer their students the option of attending higher-achieving schools.

“This decision should have been made a year ago,” D’Alessandro said. “We didn’t have the will to do it. I hope this is a legacy.”

At last night’s public hearing, hundreds of parents and teachers came to rail against the plan, calling it “brutal” and “appalling.” The assistant principal at the Fitzgerald organized a bus that brought scores of parents and children from the school to protest.

This scene had been repeated over the last several months as different schools across the system came on the chopping block, only to be saved as the school committee scrapped plan after plan. But emotions ran higher than usual at last night’s meeting, where entire school communities faced the possibility of being written off.

“You’re just giving up,” Chucky Thomas, a 10-year-old Harrington student, testified before the school committee. “At Harrington we’re told not to give up.”

One principal sobbed throughout the meeting. A small girl walked up to Mayor Michael A. Sullivan, presenting him with a poster she’d been holding in support of her school. Several parents addressed the committee in Portuguese and relied on translators to convey their messages.

The Cambridge School Committee will vote in the next two weeks whether to approve the plan, which after closing the Harrington and Fitzgerald would relocate the Graham and Parks and King Open Schools into the empty buildings.

Principals of the districts’s 15 elementary schools found themselves in an awkward position. On Wednesday night, all 15 had signed a letter endorsing the closure of two schools, but they left the choice of which two up to the superintendent.

Last night, parents attacked D’Alessandro’s choices, saying she had targeted two schools that had improved in recent years despite high concentrations of recent immigrants and poor families.

“The plan hurts some of the most economically disadvantaged families in the city,” said Fitzgerald parent Sylvia Sensioer.

“What does this say to the poorest of our families?” said Harrington teacher Emer Malloy. “Our children should not be measured by their test scores but by the slope they have to climb.”

Students at the two closed schools would be split up across the district, although some spots would be reserved for them in the buildings that housed their former schools. Many parents said they support their current “neighborhood” schools and fear having to bus their children across the city.

“Are you going to pay for my kids’ therapy? Because I’d like to see it in writing tonight,” said Fitzgerald parent Mary Byrne. “I will fight you to the bitter end and then some.”

For three hours, the committee listened to public testimony. When they finally voiced their own reactions, they offered conditional support.

When previous plans had come to the table, committee members had dismissed them quickly and adamantly.

Last night, they questioned the proposal on a variety of issues, including its ability to create educational equity within the district and the location of the Portuguese bilingual program.

As members of D’Alessandro’s administration defended their proposal, some committee members softened their opposition.

Even after saying he could “not support” the plan, Alfred B. Fantini later hinted that the plan had more potential than the others.

“It needs a major tweak,” he said.

—Staff writer Claire A. Pasternack can be reached at cpastern@fas.harvard.edu.