7 thoughts on “10 Reasons to Combine Lapham & Marquette”

1. Thanks, Lawrie, for pointing out the positives of closure. I’ve been through this as a board member in Rapid City, and it’s gut wrenching to close schools. It takes a lot of courage to see through the strong emotions, and look at the educational and social benefits that consolidating schools can have.

2. Lawrie makes very good arguments for combining Lapham and Marquette schools.
   The pedagogically, many of the reasons are solid: 3) teachers K-5, 4) teaching teams, 6) full or close-full time art, music, phys ed. Arguments given by principals in support were increased support, and services, increased opportunities and flexibility. For these reasons, then, one would expect improved educational opportunities for the kids involved, over what has been available to them up until now.
   The social aspect in (2) also important, and a key rationale I used in deciding where my daughter should be schooled (Leopold).
   But, now for a hard question.
   These compeling reasons have existed for many years in these schools, and yet the district did not propose them until now.
   Why?

3. First, these are many of the reasons that people in the neighborhood – myself included – opposed reopening Lapham over 15 years ago.
   I cannot speak for the board, but I suspect that there are several reasons that this has not been looked at before:
   — the unwillingness of the board majority to closely examine how the district allocated resources and the educational impact of those decisions
   — the failure of the board to make a solid attempt to address the structural deficit for much of the past decade, and the absence of a long range financial or facilities plan for the district. Thanks to Lawrie’s diligence last November, we have a much clearer picture of the budget and the impact of multiple decisions to dip into the equity fund than we had even a year ago.
   — the unwillingness of individual board members to invoke the wrath of the 6th district voters, who tend to be among the heaviest voting wards in Madison (e.g. fear of losing votes)
   — the decision to reopen Lapham remains an old wound that is reopened with the current debate
   In the end, the cynic in me says that much of the answer boils down to political expediency. Even though Lawrie and I come to very different conclusions about what to do, we share one fundamental belief: the district cannot afford to continue with a budgeting process that bets – and loses – on salary savings to cover spending increases. Under some very firm and determined questioning by Lawrie, even Art Rainwater and Roger Price have admitted that we have reached the limits of this strategy and are jeopardizing the future financial health of the district if we go there again.
   In short, the bandaid box is empty.

4. Props to Lawrie for addressing publicly what is obviously a charged issue. Open discussion of these items is a significant improvement from the lack of dialogue on substantive issues in the recent past (curriculum rigor, health care costs, governance and structural deficits).
   How does support or opposition to Lawrie’s position relate to the MMSD’s “equity policy”? I’m thinking in terms of elementary schools where Leopold has 697 students and Marquette 232 along with all of the issues that follow from there:
   http://www.mmsd.org/topics/stats/2006/
   Madison area school student population numbers:
   http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2007/04/madison_area_sc.php
   Links related to the “equity policy”:
   http://www.madison.k12.wi.us/boe/equity/
   http://www.google.com/search?q=mmsd+%22equity+policy%22
   http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=mmsd+%22equity+policy%22

5. I disagree with the “10 good reasons to put the paired elementary schools, Lapham and Marquette, into one building”. Some are not reasons; others do not address or offset the very good reasons for not combining the schools.
   1. The school would be a K-5 school, like most elementary schools in the District. – This is a fact, not a reason. Schools that are K-5 schools have mixed grade classrooms. At one school my children attended this led to three kids going through second grade three times: in 1-2, 2, and 2-3 combinations. These three families no longer attend that school.
   2. Siblings in elementary school would go to school in the same building. They would not be split after 2nd grade. – You loose the major benefit of allowing the staff to specialize in smaller child development age groups. I have always been impressed with how well the staff at both schools meets the particular requirements of the respective age groups at those schools.
   3. Students would have the benefit of having teachers from kindergarten through 5th grade in the same building, which should strengthen relationships between students and teachers. – Yes it would, but those relationships are minor and diminish in importance as the children age when compared to the primary student-teacher relationship, which changes every year as each student advances.
   4. The teaching teams at Lapham and Marquette would be combined for the K-5 school, so strong teaching teams would not be split up. – There are strong teaching teams at each school now. Combining the schools would allow the District to disrupt those teams as well as disrupt the teacher-principle relationships that have allowed those strong teams to thrive.
   5. The combined K-5 school would have approximately 450 students, which is the size of six other MMSD elementary schools, and significantly smaller than two other MMSD elementary schools. – That’s a fact, not a reason to combine the schools.
   6. The K-5 school would have full-time, or close to full-time, art, music and physical education teachers. – This is irrelevant because the same teachers would continue to teach the same students as they do now, regardless of which school they were in.
   7. All students would attend school close to their homes. Lapham and Marquette are only 1.06 miles away from each other. – They attend schools close to their homes under the current arrangement, too. In fact, one could argue that the current arrangement is better because it evens out the travel time because students go to one school for three years, and then to the other. Currently, for half of a student’s time in the Marquette/Lapham schools, the student is closer to home than he or she would otherwise be. Further, the Lapham/Marquette area is long and narrow. If the schools were combined, some fraction (likely between 25 – 50% if you assume the student population decreases as you move towards the Capital) of the students would actually have farther to go to get to Marquette for their grade school career.
   8. District schools would continue to exist and be operated in both the Lapham and Marquette neighborhoods. – I don’t see how this is relevant, because the students in the alternative programs are from all over the city. Schools with the alternative programs should no longer be considered “neighborhood” schools.
   9. If the District’s growth projections for the area are too low, there is still plenty of space at neighboring Lowell and Emerson schools for students. – If there is plenty of space at Lowell and Emerson, why hasn’t the District looked at changes in these schools, too? It seems to me that this entire plan is a poorly thought out band-aid that does not address likely growth patterns in the area. There was a remarkably detailed process that many participated in last year to address these issues (the East Attendance Area Task Force). The recommendations from that process are being completely ignored. The Administration should be looking at ways to implement those suggestions, and others that have been brought up since, and not just ignore or reject them.
   10. Last but not least, combining the paired schools would save money, and would free up space to house programs currently located in rented space. –I am not at all convinced that there would be significant cost savings due to combining the schools. To me, the intangible reasons for not combining the schools more than make up for any minor short term cost savings if they exist. For example, if, as others have suggested, the administration has in fact reduced the number of district administration staff over time to save money, why can’t at least one or two of the alternative programs be moved to the Doyle building?
   What would be a shame would be if the Board and Administration elected to combine Marquette and Lapham without thoroughly considering all costs and benefits, both tangible and intangible, and without honestly exploring the many suggestions that others have made to address the financial situation of the district.

6. I posted this recently on the EastHigh community list-serve: “Last year, the Task Force took pains to review–with very little time–the feasibility of moving Alternative programs to O’Keeffe and/or Lapham. We recommended more study was needed to determine how best to create/maintain good learning environments for all… Some theories were discussed, but it was clear we couldn’t land on any one proposal–again, in such a short time.
   Keeping the Alt programs at Brearly was accepted by all, especially in light of the other part of our recommendation: the district should take time to seek out a permanent home for the Alt programs, one that would be the best learning environment for their kids, and not create crowding, safety concerns traffic problems, etc., for an established school. There’s more to all that, but I’m tired
   .
   The district did not pursue, analyze, do outreach to the community at-large, seek out alternative funding sources for a building site (e.g. the old Atwood Comm Ctr buildings)… So here we are again,with little time and few proposals. I feel bad that the Alt program kids and staff have the district breathing down their necks over the Brearly rent…
   The Board, as well, is looking at many ideas for the budget gap, on the whole–with, you know, very little time… I appreciate, greatly, the hard and thoughtful work being done by Board members in creating their amendments. We have so little time, and there are so many recommendations for cuts more easily reversible (and less controversial, clearly). I’ll be holding my breath until, well, Tuesday??”
   I also want to reiterate my thoughts–well, not just mine–on this whole consolidation thing. The ideas that K-5s are more common, that sibs could be in the same building, that we could find space at another school when we need it (soon)…do not reach the level of significance that would suggest consolidating Lapham and Marquette is something we must do. As for the suggestion that projections may be off–do we just want to keep changing boundaries? Come back to this same convoluted discussion again a couple of years from now? Pack 450 kids, etc., into Lapham, just to need more space again soon? One more thing: we’ve been told the current teachers and staff at each school do not just up and move to the other. Teaching teams are lost, not maintained as is noted above.
   Laura Chastain

7. I really appreciate the comments by Lawrie Kobza. I believe Arlene Silveira is also not opposing the cosolidation plan. Not a popular position for these board members to take, but a thoughtful one. Most of the discussion I’ve heard about the consolidation plan has focused on the negatives. I certainly understand that the negatives are real and families in those schools are rightfully upset. However, as so well articulated by Lawrie, there are benefits in addition to the substantial cost savings to the budget. I think we also must be concerned with our future space and budget needs in the district. The elementary schools in both the LaFollette and West high school attendance areas will be close to capacity in the next five years with some schools projected to be considerably over capacity. The West/Memorial task force last year spent lots of time discussing moving children to use space at East attendance area schools. It simply doesn’t work for a very long list of reasons. The same difficulties will be there as the LaFollette and West areas reach their elementary school capacity over the next 5 years. I expect we will be going back to the taxpayers to ask for more building money in the not too distant future. There is also talk of going to referendum for operating costs as early as next year. I expect that I will support these initiatives as I believe we don’t spend enough on education and it is one of the most valuable investments we make. However, I’m not sure everyone else in the district will be so quick to agree. We need to make the best use of the space we already have and make that clear to the public. I dislike the idea of losing a school, but of the cuts on the list, I think it will impact education less than others.
   Fern Murdoch

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