Note: I’m not an expert on school issues by far, and I’m still trying to catch up on all of the issues regarding the boundary changes. Thanks to those who have met with me, called and e-mailed and helped me keep up just a little!
Sunday’s paper had a story on the dilemma facing the Madison School District. The story pointed out many interesting dynamics of how the city grows and how approvals by the City of Madison to build housing effects the School District. Despite our recent efforts to create a Comprehensive Plan for the City of Madison, sometimes, we work at cross-purposes with ourselves and with other local governments, including the Madison Metropolitan School District.
As someone who sits on the City of Madison Plan Commission, is participating in the BUILD plan for the E Washington area and is seeing new projects built in my district, I find it alarming that there is even talk of closing downtown schools. All of our City plans indicate that we are trying to increase homeownership on the isthmus, create a variety of housing options and bring additional families downtown. The recent project on the 800 block of E Washington has some family townhomes across from Reynolds Park and is ideal for families that may eventually have kids that go to school a few blocks away at Lapham School. Closing that school or other isthmus schools would be devastating to the efforts of the neighborhoods to make our neighborhoods more family friendly.
Furthermore, given recent school referendum results and frenzied rhetoric about rising taxes, I don’t see approvals to spend money to build new schools passing any time soon. We’re going to need these schools to be open so we have some place to send our children to school in our community. I still have much to learn regarding these issues and will be listening to parents and others in the community, but one thing is clear – closing downtown schools will create more problems than it solves, is inconsistent with in-fill development plans for the area and is very short-sighted.
