Faced with decades of disinvestment and population changes, EBR has been left with a school facilities portfolio that is significantly larger than needed to serve the number of students currently enrolled. District leadership must realign facilities assets in a way that results in better serving students by providing quality educators, abundant social support, robust arts, sports, and other enrichment opportunities, reliable transportation, and comfortable and modern learning spaces. EBR can be a place where every student has access to the resources and supports necessary to prepare them for a life of opportunity. At the Alliance, our deeply held belief is that to ensure this process yields positive outcomes for students and the city, it must be conducted with intentional engagement of these key stakeholder groups.
- The board must develop an objective, clear, and accessible rubric by which school buildings will be analyzed for potential closure or consolidation.
- The aim of the realignment process must not only be about physical plant; it must be anchored in a goal of increasing enrollment in higher-performing schools and directing more resources to those schools to drive further performance gains.
- The school board must determine a minimum concentration of students needed to sustain resource-rich educational environments.
- Parents and educators are best positioned to advise the school board as to the menu of programs and services that make up a resource-rich educational environment.
- Empty district facilities cannot sit empty, becoming a magnet for criminal activity and a blight upon neighborhoods. The board should set a deadline for redevelopment of each empty building, and must have a community-driven plan for the future of every school building.
- Neighborhoods must have a meaningful voice in determining the next use of any empty school buildings, to ensure that they remain community assets. The school board must sincerely ask for their input.
- The board must consider the student experience and make an effort to balance the need to urgently provide better-resourced schools with maintaining stability in students’ educational journeys.
- At all times during the process, the board and district staff must intentionally choose transparency and public review.
