Adrian Rodriguez, president of the Hispanic Coalition of Western New York and a long-time community activist on the West Side, can tick off a laundry list of slights to his neighborhood: the 2000 redistricting that fractured the Hispanic population’s growing political clout; the reorganization of the city police department that resulted in the closing of three police precincts, more than doubling police response time; the closing of the Roberto Clemente Clinic on Grant Street; the loss of two firehouses.

Even as the West Side begins to attract investment and neighborhood rehabilitation, Rodriguez says, it is losing key resources on which that investment and activism might build. He feels sabotaged.

So when, on February 1, a list of six schools to be closed included two Lower West Side elementary schools with strong bilingual education programs—School #36 on Days Park and School #77 on Normal Avenue—Rodriguez was furious.

“These are high-performing schools,” Rodriguez said. “In this neighborhood we are desperate for something to be proud of. Now we have it in these schools, and they want to shut them down.”

The other schools recommended for closing, consolidation or suspension of service on July 1, 2006 are the Frank A. Sedita Academy School #38 on Lowell Street, School #171 Opportunity Program Center on East Delevan Avenue, School #142 Fulton Opportunity Program Center on Fulton Street and Seneca High School #306 on East Delevan Avenue. The plan recommends closing three more schools—#71 on Newburgh Street, #40 on Clare Street and #63 on Minnesota Avenue—between now and September 2007.

The criteria for determining which schools should be closed were declining enrollment, the condition of the building and the school’s compatability with long-range strategic plans—that is, whether the site permitted future expansion of the structure, whether the classrooms were of a sufficient size to accommodate current and future educational models and whether the building had the capacity to accommodate PreK-8 programs, instead of just PreK-2, as at #36, or PreK-4, as at #77.

School performance was not a criterion. Parents, teachers and administrators at Schools #36 and #77 argue that it should be. So does Rodriguez, who believes financial considerations should take second place to educational objectives.

“What’s being put first through these recommendations is not the education of our children, it’s the financial well-being of the Buffalo school district,” Rodriguez said. “The criteria being used for closing these schools is one that puts more emphasis on the physical shape of schools…all these factors will ultimately fulfill the financial goals of the Buffalo Board of Education. But these criteria fail to take into account how the school closings will affect the quality of education for children, nor does it consider how they will affect the community in which they live.”

A Model School

“If a program is successful, let’s duplicate it,” Rodriguez continued. “I’ve heard Dr. Williams say that many times. School #77 is one of the best-performing schools in the entire city of Buffalo, and has a bilingual and bicultural staff to serve the students’ needs. For many parents and students, School #77 is not just a school. It’s a vital part of the West Side community.”

As recently as November, School #77 was recognized as an exemplary institution—a model for other schools in the district and evidence for the public that Buffalo schools were not hopeless.

On November 1, 2005, Catherine F. Battaglia, Ph.D., community superintendent in the Office of School Performance, wrote a memo to Buffalo Schools Superintendent Dr. James A. Williams titled “Good News from School #77”:

I read with great interest the recent article in the Buffalo News regarding the performance of the Charter Schools in our City. I would have liked to have some focus placed on the public schools in our District, like School #77 with Principal, Philip Friot, that are making good positive gains with student performance while still facing the challenges that predominate in our system.

School #77 has 90.50% poverty rate and 33.90% of the students are classified as ELL [English language learners]. About 20% of the student 1 population is referred to Special Education, yet the school is classified as “In good standing,” because it continues to make steady gains in both the ELA [English Language Arts] and math 4 assessments.

When I asked Mr. Friot to what he attributes this success, he emphasized a ‘do less better’ focus on key intiatives withing the school. Perhaps, when we have the opportunity, we may want to devote some media attention to schools like #77 to counter balance the arguments raised about the success of the Charters.

When you can, I hope you will visit this school. I am looking forward to my work with Mr. Friot this year. I think I will learn much that can be shared with colleagues throughout the District.

“We’re obviously doing something right,” said Katrina Sutherland, who has been teaching first and second grade at School #77 for seven years and has witnessed its steady gains in performance under Friot’s leadership. “We’re fourth in the district for ELA. We feel like we’ve been trained to deliver a particular curriculum in an effective way, and there is no way of knowing whether a successful program such as ours will survive moving to a new institution.”

Additionally, the district has poured $4 million in physical improvements into School #77 in recent years. Though it suffers many of the same indignities as schools throughout the district—a computer lab without a computer instructor, a library without a librarian—its physical plant is in order.

Williams has not visited School #77 since the proposed closures were announced. For the most part Williams and other school district officials have chosen to site community meetings for parents and students at schools not slated for closing or suspension of service. Hundreds of the school’s neighbors gathered on Friday, February 10, however, to speak before the Board of Education in the school’s auditorium. Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and Erie County majority leader Maria Whyte also attended, although they have no formal vote in the matter, along with City Councilman Nick Bonafacio. Congressman Brian Higgins could not attend, but sent his aide in his stead. Williams was not there.

But he did stop by tiny School #36 on Days Park, at the invitation of the principal, staff and parents.

Thursday, February 9, School #36

Last Thursday’s meeting at School #36 was not scheduled by district officials. Rather, concerned teachers and administrators at the school scheduled the meeting themselves and invited district officials, including Williams, to attend so that the officials might explain the rationale for the proposed closing and hear what the neighborhood thought about it. Williams agreed to attend, but said he could stay no longer than one hour.

School #36 on Days Park is, indeed, a small school: It has 272 students, including a large bilingual enrollment. Many students come from Spanish-speaking households, many more from a variety of ethnic and linguistic backgrounds—the school has seen an influx of Somali students, for example, the children of refugees re-settled in the neighborhood.

The school has been the recipient of at least $500,000 in physical improvements in the past 10 years.

Williams promised the parents of students at School #36 an hour. However, in the meeting—interrupted by Spanish translation for parents and cut short by Williams, who proceeded to leave 10 minutes early—parents and teachers who were present felt that they did not have sufficient opportunity to express their opinions.

“We got a reiteration of what he already said in the newspaper, at the [School] Board meeting and…from his Building Usage Committee,” said Marlene Merzacco, an English as a Second Language program specialist at School #36. “There were no new thoughts, and he didn’t want to hear any questions because he didn’t have any answers.”

Under the proposal, the students at #36 and #77 would be folded into one big PreK-8 program at School #38. Several parents, teachers and administrators worried about the potentially adverse effects of placing younger students in close proximity with middle schoolers.

“At the PreK-2 stage, the kids aren’t learning inappropriate behaviors that are modeled by the older students, so that’s very important, and in a smaller community, they feel safer. They feel the nurturing that’s so necessarily for early childhood,” said Wanda Schoenfeld, principal of School #36 and a former principal of the West Hertel Academy, a grades 5-8 institution. “I found myself to be spending most of my time with seventh- and eighth-graders, because there are very serious behavior and academic concerns, because many of them were still at a third- or fourth-grade reading level.”

Ralph Hernandez, the Buffalo School Board’s West District representative, echoed this opinion, and lauded the school’s programs for non-English speakers:

“I think the individualized attention helps cater to the needs of the students better,” Hernandez said. “These kids have special needs because they have a language barrier. A lot of them require that kind of assistance as they move through the early grades. School #36 has been very successful in the way they’ve been administering their program, and I’m very skeptical about closing this school.”

“The teachers in School 36 are knowledgeable about not only bilingual education, but early childhood [development] and they’re always available to help students and guide them through the process of becoming independent,” said Maeve López-Kassem, a student-teacher supervisor associated with SUNY at Buffalo’s Bilingual Education Program. “As a parent, I would rather send my child to a school where they would be nurtured in that environment with teachers who are experts in the field of early childhood education.”

Williams responded to these and other concerns with a set of legitimate concerns: Buffalo schools used to have more than 100,000 students and now have only 43,000; the $1 billion Joint Schools Reconstruction Project provides a unique, if emotionally painful, opportunity to completely reconsider the district’s physical infrastructure; and enrollment at schools like #36 and #77 are down.

However, Reverend Alberto Lanzot, of Primera Iglesia Metodista Unida on Virginia Street, contested the notion that enrollment was down at School #36. “My resources tell me that since September, the district has been saying that School #36 was full. Today you’re announcing that it’s not full…they’re saying that the enrollment was at capacity, and today you’re telling us that it’s not at capacity.

“What this tells me, as a logical person, is that this thing was a done deal in September. Now you’re just going through the process.”

In the end Williams did most of the talking while the public waited for their chance to speak. He left 50 minutes into the meeting, saying he had to get to another school, prompting one man to shout, “You control the setting, you control the environment and now you won’t let us speak up. It was all a stunt. It was all a political game, and you did not listen to one word we had to say.”

The next day, 33 people who had attended the hearing at School #36 issued a letter to Williams to say that they were “appalled over your rudeness and lack of respect towards us and our children”:

This meeting was requested by us to answer questions about the proposed closing of our school. Answering questions was the least you could have done for us after proposing such a disaster. Our school should be a showcase for the Board and Buffalo should build on it rather than close it…

The letter noted that the children at the school, excited by the superintendent’s visit, dedicated a performance of the school song to him. While the children sang, Williams sipped coffee and engaged in a private conversation.

It was noted by everyone (including the children) that you did not pay any attention to them. It did not make us believe that you would answer your questions or pay any attention to our concerns and we were right. How do you think we as parents feel? Your lack of consideration was appalling.

The letter closes with an invitation for Williams and his staff to return to School #36 at their earliest convenience to try again.

Buffalo’s Fastest-Growing

Student Population

As in most American cities, Buffalo’s fastest-growing student population is Spanish-speaking and poor. New York State is one of the worst states in the country for funding educational programs targeting the needs of this fast-growing clientele. And Buffalo is one of the worst districts in New York State.

Federal funding for bilingual education—for education in general, for that matter—is also on the decline, cut by 15 percent this year alone. James Crawford, the executive director of the National Association for Bilingual Education, partly attributes this trend to misguided federal laws, mainly the No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed by President Bush in January of 2002. The law requires strict testing for public school students, without special provisions for students who lack English-language proficiency.

“At the federal level, NCLB has more or less frozen spending for English-language learners over the past five years,” said Crawford. “This is unfortunate at a time when enrollment [in bilingual programs] is skyrocketing all over the country. It’s unfortunate that children are being shortchanged at the classroom level because of all these testing requirements.”

Public bilingual education in the U.S. is a product of the Civil Rights Movement. The American system of bilingual education, after a rough start in the early 1970s, has developed into one of the best in the world, according to Dr. Wolfgang Wolck, a linguistics professor at SUNY at Buffalo. Buffalo’s Herman Badillo Academy, for example, was once a national leader in bilingual education along the previously dominant maintenance model of instruction, which produced truly bilingual students by offering instruction in both English and, in most cases, Spanish, up until about the fifth grade. Today’s programs are primarily transitional, which means that they offer some initial instruction in Spanish, but with the goal of switching the student to English-language instruction as early as possible, oftentimes resulting in a monolingual student.

This is a shame, according to Wolck, because students who grow up speaking more than one language score better by nearly any assessment system in any academic discipline.

“That news is not well enough spread,” he said. “The benefits are clear. Children who are brought up bilingually or multilingually have certain cognitive advantages over monolingual students.

“I understand something about the financial situation that Buffalo schools are facing,” Wolck added. “But if this does result in the destruction of the programs, that is sad.”

In fact, many parents said that they enrolled their children at Schools #36 and #77 specifically because they wanted their children to learn in a diverse, multilingual environment. That is one of the selling points of the Lower West Side as a community, and it has begun to draw investment in properties in Days Park and all the way up Massachussetts Avenue. In a city so severely segregated by race, the Lower West Side is an accidental experiment in multiculturalism.

“Having my daughters go to this bilingual school was a choice I made,” said Joanna Cook, a School #36 parent. “I have the right to be able to have that choice and would like the privilege to do that in my own neighborhood, not to have to have to send my children to other neighborhoods to be taught with other children where [the teachers] would not understand their bilingual needs.”

The bilingual programs at Schools #36 and #77 will not necessarily disappear; instead they will be integrated into a new PreK-8 school.

Hernandez, the West District representative on the Board of Education, would like to see School #36 kept open and transformed into a PreK-4 international school. The new School #36 would cater to a whole spectrum of Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Hispanic children who require specialized instruction in order to achieve English-language literacy.

In any case, when it comes to Buffalo schoolchildren with special needs—and surely students from non-English-speaking homes qualify as special-needs students—discussing changes to essential programs should require a different measuring stick, according to Hernandez:

“[When] we’re dealing with limited-English proficiency students, we have to take a step back and perhaps use modified criteria and take into consideration the age of those children, the needs of those children and the concern of the community,” said Hernandez. “All of that should be a factor, and I don’t think it’s fair for anyone on the board or in the district to put the burden of proof on the community and the parents to tell us what they’d do differently if they don’t want their school closed.”

PreK-8 versus PreK-4

A number of parents at both School 377 and School #36 expressed concern that the district was moving toward consolidating PreK-8 programs in single buildings. School #38, for example, which would absorb many of the programs and students from both schools, is intended to become a PreK-8 building. Parents worry that the advantages of a small school will be lost, and that the discipline problems which manifest among preteens and teens will create an unhealthy environment for small children.

According to Rosalyn Taylor, assistant superintendent for school operations, Buffalo schools six years ago began implementing a core model that called for separate PreK-4, 5-8 and high school facilities. In doing so, the district followed current trends, propeled by studies that suggested that separating age groups made for stronger educational programs. “We were off and running with that,” Taylor said.

But the new superintendent, citing both new research that indicates PreK-8 facilities work just as well or better educationally, as well as the need to find cost-saving efficiencies, has set a different course.

“Let’s set up a PreK-8 structure,” Williams told the Board of Education recently. “Why move our kids three or four times? K-2, then we move them to a 3-4, then we move them to something else. Our children need stability.”

Taylor affirmed that recent research indicates consolidated PreK-8 programs work well, but offered mostly anecdotal evidence for their benefits. Many parents came to her, she said, worried about the transitions their children faced when moving to a new school for fifth grade. PreK-8 affords consistency and the chance to build relationships, and to keep siblings in the same building.

At the community hearings on the proposed closures, parents expressed the opposite concerns. Overwhelmingly they did not like the idea of mixing young children with preteens and teens.

“All I can say is that seventh and eighth graders provide good mentors to younger children,” Taylor responded. “I grew up in a K-8 building and I think I turned out just fine.”

As for the research, there is plenty on both sides of the debate, and none of it is conclusive. One study provided by the district to support the move to PreK-8 facilities emphasizes that the most important element in forecasting a program’s likelihood of success was not whether the facility was consolidated PreK-8 or segmented into PreK-4 and 5-8, but whether you had a good team conscientiously implementing a good program.

In other words, the most important criterion is school performance. If you have a great team, it’s not so important how your facilities are divided up.

“We spend a lot of time on subjective responses to issues,” said Dr. Folasade Oladele, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. “We get sidetracked in emotional issues when in fact the central issue is the performance of children in Buffalo. There is not an evidentiary base to support the idea that middle-school children and older harm younger children.”

“We’re not talking about emotion when we’re talking about scores going up consistently for five years,” said Lori Lynch, an ESL teacher at School #77 since 1988. “That’s pretty cut and dry.”

When Lynch started at #77, it was a K-8 school. She thinks returning to that configuration would be a mistake, not only because the school is functioning better academically as a PreK-4 school. “Young students belong in a smaller school. There are a lot of distractions when you have a middle school combined with elementary. It drives the scheduling, it drives everything, and that takes away from the attention you need to give to a small child.”

The District’s Dilemma

To be sure, Williams has a tough row to hoe: Like everything else in Buffalo, the schools system must contract in correspondence to the decline in the city’s population. The 10-year, $1 billion Joint School Reconstruction Plan, if well managed and executed, provides Buffalo Schools with a tremendous opportunity to consolidate and update the district’s facilities. But more schools will have to close, and school closings are emotionally fraught. No one wants to lose his neighborhood school.

“To close a school like #36 isn’t just closing a school, it’s literally destroying a community of educators, parents, and children,” said Russell Link, who lives on Arlington Place, two blocks from Days Park.

A school closing also leaves a hole in the neighborhood. The district will remain responsible for the upkeep of closed facilities, but the district has trouble taking care of the facilities it has. And the buildings are liable to sit empty for at least one year before the are turned over to the city’s Office of Strategic Planning, and probably for much longer than that. On the Lower West Side—a mostly poor, multicultural neighborhood that is beginning to attract investment and shows signs of reversing a long decline through community activism—those holes in the neighborhood might be devastating.

“We do not close schools lightly or frivolously,” said Amber Dixon, executive director for project intiiatives. “Nor is it a happy thing that our population has shrunk the way it has. We would like to fill very school building we have with as many children as we can. And I think with our new superintendent’s three-year academic achievement plan, I see people coming back to us. Then we can re-open some of these programs and fill them with students.”

There are two more public meetings: Thursday, February 16 at 6pm at the Stanley Makowski Early Childhood Center School #99 at Jefferson and Best; and Saturday, February 18 at 9am at D’Youville Porter School #3 on Porter Avenue.

The Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the proposed closings on Wednesday, February 22, at 5:30pm in City Hall, Room 801. All three meetings are open to the public.

Ralph Hernandez is hopeful that he can find the votes to keep the schools in his district open. “My understanding, to be honest with you, is that we’re almost there,” he said. “I don’t think we have the five votes yet, but I think we’re very close.”