MID-DEL, Okla. (KFOR) – A years-long research by a state company dug into the right way to enhance the Mid-Del College District and really helpful closing some elementary faculties due to low enrollment charges and outdated or under-utilized buildings.
“If there’s an area to shift issues round, I believe it’s price it,” stated Mid-Del Colleges Superintendent Dr. Rick Cobb.
In all, the Oklahoma Workplace of Instructional High quality and Accountability discovered 71 suggestions for enhancing operations and pupil schooling inside the district. One in all them was a advice to close down 4 elementary faculties.
“We’d shut zero, one, two, [but] I do not see us attending to 4,” stated Dr. Cobb.
The faculties up for attainable closure embody Cleveland Bailey, Nation Estates, Highland Park, Ridgecrest, Steed and Townsend Elementary Colleges.
Mid-Del Superintendent, Dr. Rick Cobb, stated even earlier than the pandemic, the faculties noticed low enrollment numbers.
“We must align the attendance boundaries to verify we’re not pushing class sizes means up,” stated the Superintendent.
Dr. Cobb stated most of the faculties are additionally outdated. Lots of them have been standing because the Fifties.
“We’ve got some areas the place children are going to highschool in a constructing that is 70-years-old, and it is lower than a mile away from one other faculty that’s lower than 10 years previous,” he stated.
“I might say seasoned buildings,” stated Kanika Polk, a former Mid-Del substitute instructor and mom of seven.
One in all Polk’s daughters attends Highland Park elementary.
“It brings communities collectively, as an alternative of [saying] simply, ‘Oh we simply right here for college,’” stated Polk. “You’ll be able to develop with one another if you’re there. If you’re bussed out, it form of takes away a few of that.”
Polk stated she’s fearful concerning the thought of her younger little one being bussed throughout city for college and anxious different children might miss out on after-school actions as a result of they will’t stroll to highschool.
“There are a lot of folks children that may’t take part as a result of they’re mother and father, cannot get them backwards and forwards. But when they’ve it of their neighborhood, they will stroll there,” she stated.
“Whether or not we shut faculties or not, we have to make some selections about how we will preserve the amenities that we maintain open,” stated the superintendent.
Dr. Cobb stated thus far, no selections have been made to shut faculties.
The superintendent stated the district can be engaged on placing collectively an Elementary Realignment Committee, made up of oldsters, employees and the neighborhood, to see how they will work with their previous buildings and use the house one of the simplest ways they will.
