Cutting line

Great news for the students at Julia Green Elementary in Green Hills--a Frist family donation of several million dollars will allow this school to cut to the front of the capital improvement budget and move it from 68th on the list for repair/renovation to near first.

I'm looking at the Capital Improvement Budget for 2006-2012 provided to me while on the School Board this summer. This document has a renovation score included in it. A survey was done of facilities and each was given various numerical scores based on its condition. Julia Green Elementary was very near the end of the list at 68 of 76. 67 other buildings were in line before Julia Green Elementary. In the first 8 most needing of repair were 4 schools in East Nashville's District 5 alone-Isaac Litton Middle School whose recent lead levels in the drinking water has made headlines, Rosebank Elementary whose electrical problems literally blew out light bulbs and sent shards of glass showering down on people, Maplewood High and Stratford high where I witnessed a serious water leak in a computer lab among other things. On this chart District 5 schools (BOE member Gracie Porter's responsibility) are highlighted.

And so here we have a perfect example of the tension between the haves and the have nots in what is supposed to be a free and equal public education system. Your mileage will vary. This is what makes suggestions like Councilman and mayoral candidate Buck Dozier's to create a billion dollar endowment for the public schools an idea worth discussing. We have got to seriously consider long term funding for maintenance and building projects. Here we have a school in a wealthy section of town, with merely a 25.7% economically disadvantaged population leap frogging ahead of dozens of other schools with thousands of children who have parents who could never dream of cobbling together $30,000 let alone $3 million.

I know full well that the Frist family has been at the forefront of many worthy public projects--my children have benefited from their donations to the zoo and the museum. I do appreciate their generosity, however, I know full well that we have schools with more serious and immediate needs. Julia Green parents may be rightly concerned about the condition of their school but I challenge them to cross the river and see what other people's children are having to live with and without.

This is good news for 37215 but sobering news for 37206 as we wait in line for our turn.

Neighborhood schools

The following announcement is a banner across the top of the Litton High School alumni page:

URGENT MEETING SCHEDULED for TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14th at 6:00 PM re: LITTON'S FUTURE

Come to Isaac Litton Middle School on Tuesday, November 14th at 6:00 PM to discuss the current condition of our school. As the PTA President, I support Litton alumni efforts to renovate the old gym because it is part of the revitalization of Inglewood. However, some at the Board of Education want to shut it down and if they do, they may also sell the entire 11 plus acres to an apartment developer. Those were the wishes of the former BOE member, Lisa Hunt. Your support and presence will be appreciated. Wendy Poston '77, President, ILMS PTA

While Lisa Hunt has moved on to Houston and is no longer the BOE rep and those apartment complex plans may have changed, the fact remains that that 11 acres on Gallatin Road could be prime development pickings. All it's going to take is for Metro Nashville Public Schools to continue to let the building decay to a point where it's cost prohibitive to repair and Inglewood becomes dramatically different. All that's left of the original Litton High is the gymnasium which MNPS has not maintained well, if at all. I blogged about this earlier here and here. Mike Byrd gave us his perspective of the stewardship of Jones Paideia a year ago here and here. Here's part of what Mike wrote:

Unlike suburban public schools, schools close to the center city often act as one of a few anchors for the walkable neighborhood. When they are good, they are one of the few institutions that actually attract families, rather than upwardly mobile singles or older adults, back to urban neighborhoods, because families with kids require good schools.

and

As I told you, the destruction done by closing these schools also rips like shrapnel across the fabric of urban neighborhoods. The closure of neighborhood schools represents the closure of neighborhood centers and the closure of the familial dimensions of those neighborhoods.

And it's true. Good schools are an anchor for and an asset to the community.

I plan on being at this meeting. I hope others in the Inglewood community, the Litton community and proponents of neighborhood schools will also attend to support this effort. Here we have a school that is doing well and meeting the needs of the students--well except for the fresh water issue, lack of enough essential readers and AC in the gymnasium (Mayor Purcell may remember how hot it is on the first day of school.) These children and families need you to attend this meeting on November 14 at 6:00 p.m. The school is located at 4601 Hedgewood. Unfortunately, you can't get there from Gallatin Road, you've got to go around 'back' and enter from the neighborhood.

I'll see you there.

Buena Vista smells

Buena Vista Elementary School has a strange odor, according to this morning's Tennessean. And hs had since the school was built in 1931.

A mystery odor described as a sewage or sulfur water stench has permeated parts of Buena Vista elementary school near Germantown off and on for three years.
(snip)
The problem was first reported when the redbrick school built in 1931 and located at 1531 9th Avenue N. reopened in 2003, after renovations and an expansion.

And this interesting tidbit was provided at no extra charge:

A pre-K-4 "enhanced option" school with an extended school year, it has 315 pupils — one white, the rest black.