Thomasina Clark watched the school after the school closed it in the St. Louis neighborhood, which was prosperous. Hurricane This spring, whose population has decreased in recent decades.
Clark said: “It is like a hole in society.” It is afraid that a new round of closure discussions can strip a historical black community for a secondary secondary school, which is among its graduates Tina Turner and Chuck Perry.
Saint Louis Public Schools are among the provinces that weigh the number of urban schools that must be open due School choice a movement. Commissioned a report This year it was found that the school system has more than twice the schools it needs.
Such decisions are intestine. that it Financial stress To work Schools are half emptyBut research shows that children are often bad after closing.
Elsewhere, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston and Norfolk, Virginia, are thinking about closed schools, while a general cry stopped them for possible closure – at now in Seattle and San Francisco.
From 2019 to 2023, enrollment decreased by 20 % or more in about 1 in every 12 public schools – about 5100, according to L. a report It was published last year by the Thomas B Institute. Forteham, the Conservative Education Research Center. The report found that many low -performance schools in high -poverty neighborhoods.
Feeling public schools It is expected For 5.5 % between 2022 and 2031, due to the changing population composition, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Other factors include a shift by some students to private education or home education and some decisions of migratory families Leave the country.
Federal funds allowed many schools to stay open during Covid-19 PandeMicDespite the decline enrollment numbers. These schools that carry analgesics have now disappeared, and those unknown schools are a problem.
“The ready -made meals are very clear,” said Smith. “The fall will continue for years. In general, government and local policy makers have to adapt to this new reality.”
Chicago Close about 50 schools In 2013 – the largest school closure in the history of the United States. After that, the fighting and bullying increased with the stability of the displaced students in new schools, said Marisa de la Tori, the administrative director and the participant of the first researcher at the Achikago Federation on school research.
Test grades Cloudy In the schools prescribed for closure, while the degrees of reading of the displaced students were ultimately recovered, mathematics performance problems continued for years.
“There were many societies that were incite against each other,” said de la Tori. “It was a very long process, and a lot of uncertainty. All of this truly impact on employees and children.”
Under the pressure from the Federation of Strong Teachers in Chicago, the city issued a stand on the closure until 2027. Nearly a third of the seats in the semester remains empty.
The number of public school students in Saint Louis decreased from 115,543 in 1967 to 18122 last year, reflecting the migration of families to the suburbs. This number can decrease more as the population leaves Torneado damaged House.
Somner and a primary school – both in the Phil neighborhood – are among the seven schools of St. Louis that have not opened this fall due to the damage of the hurricane. At the school board meeting in July, the consultants argued that the boycott could not support all its schools, which were built on average 79 years ago. They said that closures could free money to improve improvements.
The Board of Directors Donna Jones did not buy it.
She said, “Stop playing as if we don’t live in a disaster here.”
Many schools that have already been closed in an elephant. In June, the Mllencement Borishade said that the boycott is still committed to Sumner, saying that there is no plan to close it permanently. Recently, officials have been calm for his fate. With frustration, the Teachers Union issued a vote without confidence against the supervisor.
“He is already adding more shocks to those who suffer,” said Ray Kamings, President of the American Federation of Teachers, Saint Louis Local 420. These neighborhoods need hope. “
When the 150 -year -old Sumner was seen four years ago, an alliance, including non -profit 4Theville, and St. Louis Shakespeare, planned a plan to save it by expanding the arts curriculum.
Mack Williams, a 4Theville -bought coach, turned the cabinets into the museum’s shows to honor graduates of the most famous school, including Tennis Arthur Ash. There was a waiting list for the class of his museums and his students participated in the National History Day competition.
Inclusion of schools increased.
To date, Williams see hope, despite Sumner’s damage, which is estimated at $ 2 million.
“Yes, there are damages, but it still exists and this reflects the flexibility of this society,” he said.
Dakota Scott began in Somner as a student, after she struggled a lot in a university preparatory magnetic school so much that he was asked to leave.
“At that time, I was not really crazy. I was somewhat around the edges,” Scott said.
But she said, Somner helped her walk the right track. I made a movie and joined the choir, Junior ROTC and the Student Council. I competed in the history competition, and worked as a fashion show in Chicago with classmates.
“Whoever was a child was overcoming the class, I was a child who was literally at the time and Attending all my chaptersScott, who is now a female university student, said.
Noting the “rich history” of the wealthy school and the wealthy neighborhood, Clark, who taught the film industry in Somner as a volunteer, suggested that everything was not lost.
“People left, the lands of society, and commercial constructions. Schools left. Productivity left. Nothing is a lot of left dissolution,” she said. “We are trying to return it. Oh my God. If we can get a quarter of what is going on.”
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