Amid Protest, Cambridge School Consolidation Proposal Seems Likely

When two Cambridge elementary schools were threatened with closure four months ago, parents flocked to school committee meetings in busloads, protesting with signs and giving tearful testimony in front of the Cambridge School Committee.

Now, many of the same parents are back and are planning to picket in front of the Thorndike Street offices of the city’s public schools this morning to protest the latest in a series of consolidation plans aimed at coping with declining enrollments and a budget deficit of $3.8 million.

However, despite the image that today’s protest might at first convey, the new plan has gained more acceptance among both parents and school committee members than any previous proposal and is expected to pass in a school committee vote next week.

Although the new plan proposes more drastic measures than most previous proposals, the community has warmed to the proposal because of pressing financial difficulties, a change in district leadership and the plan’s potential benefits.

The proposal, which affects more schools than most previous plans, was unveiled March 18, and if approved will take effect this fall.

The plan—which would close two elementary schools and move five others—is designed both to save money and improve the city’s school system, which is facing low Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) scores and major achievement gaps among low-income and minority students.

“In addition to solving the immediate financial problems, the plan more importantly moves the system towards improved socio-economic status (SES) balance and puts in place measures which will lead to the narrowing of the achievement gap and improve the education of all of our elementary students,” the plan reads.

If adopted, the Harrington and Fitzgerald Schools would close and the King Open and Peabody Schools would move into their buildings, respectively.

The Longfellow School, including its Intensive Studies Program, would relocate to the Kennedy School, and the Graham and Parks School would move to the vacated Peabody School building. The Amigos School would move to the King Open School’s space.

Parents have taken what many say has been a calmer approach to the plan.

“There was more understanding,” says Graham and Parks School parent Owen Andrews. “I think the plan is never going to get more than grudging acceptance from anybody but that’s better than what was going on before.”

Faced with a growing deficit and proposed budget that would cut school resources, the threat of slashing needed funds has made both parents and school committee members more willing to compromise.

“Something has to give this year or too many schools will be stripped,” says Amigos School parent Marla Erlien. “It’s just so late now.”

The school system’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2003-2004—which will come to a vote in May—would cut over $2 million from elementary schools alone if no schools close.

“To me the financial situation is serious enough that I’ve said my policy of being 90 or 95 percent in favor of a policy before I vote for it is not in order here,” says committee member Alfred B. Fantini, who says he supports the plan. Other parents and committee members say the change in leadership has contributed to the more favorable response to the plan.

The committee fired Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D’Alessandro in November, saying she had failed to communicate adequately with the community about the consolidation plans she proposed. The committee hired her deputy, Carolyn Turk, to serve as interim superintendent of schools while the committee searches for a permanent replacement.

“I think Bobbie had alienated people in a certain kind of way with all the surprises,” Erlien says. “I think Carolyn Turk is less the Pollyanna: ‘you’re going to love this, this is terrific,’ that Bobbie always did. She’s much more matter-of-fact and ‘here it is.’”

Others say that Turk and her administrative team have succeeded in communicating with parents where D’Alessandro failed.

“Carolyn Turk and [Cambridge Public Schools Chief Operating Officer] Jim Maloney have run a much more open process than Bobbie ever did,” Andrews says. “The plan itself tries a lot harder than a lot of the D’Alessandro plans to explain what it’s about. For some parents that does tend to calm them down a lot.”

Parents say they have also mustered their support for the plan because of the educational benefits they envision it will bring to a district in which several schools have received a “failing” grade from the Federal government.

Erlien says the plan will increase racial and socio-economic diversity in all elementary programs.

Unlike some other Boston-area school systems, Cambridge allows parents a limited-choice as to which school their children attend, and some parents say that the plan will create more room in the city’s most popular schools.

“[The plan] does create more seats in programs that people want to go to,” Andrews says. “That appears to me to be a good thing.”

But while some parents’ protests have mellowed, others have continued the fight to save their schools.

Fantini says he thinks that because the plan is expected to pass opposition has intensified from some quarters. He adds that he has been “confronted face to face” about the plan at social events.

“There’s a sense of realness about this one,” he says. “People are responding to that—people are really nervous.”

Parents and teachers at the Peabody School in particular have spoken out against the plan at committee meetings and some intend to attend today’s protest.

Peabody parents have said the move to the Fitzgerald School and the resultant absorption of its students will threaten the school’s culture.

“The Fitzgerald community feels that the Peabody School community is a good mix although the Peabody doesn’t think so,” Fantini says.

A statement Nolan read to the committee on behalf of the Peabody parents at a recent school committee stated, “We, the parents of Peabody School children, vehemently oppose plans to move the Peabody School. If the Peabody were to be moved from its current location, we will have to seriously consider withdrawing from the school. Many of us will abandon the Cambridge Public School system entirely.”

“Please come to a protest of the school consolidation plan,” Nolan’s answering machine message says. “Make your opposition to the plan known.”

And even those who have come out in support of the plan acknowledge its potential risks and the difficulties involved in its implementation.

“Whatever the merits of this plan—and I think it has some merits—the budget problem is larger and no one has demonstrated to me that it won’t go away next year,” Andrews says. “This plan is meant to find $4 million that is missing and I think we’ll be in the same situation next year. I very much hope that it won’t be a matter of taking resources out of school programs again.”

Fantini says he worries about the district’s ability to carry through on the new proposal.

“This is clearly a high-risk maneuver. The process after the fact is going to have to be very thoroughly done,” he says. “I would prefer to move fewer children and make the move just a little more carefully and thoughtfully.”

Fantini adds that he fears a “big exodus” from the system and says he will propose “some amendments to try to hold people in Cambridge.”

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