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BY ALAN PITTMAN
Feb. 20 School Board meeting
School Strife
Eastside parents ‘beat up’ their teachers over merger
T
eachers at Eastside alternative
elementary may no longer want
to work at the school after the
school’s parents verbally abused them for
discussing a merger with the poorer and
browner Harris neighborhood elementary,
according to 4J Superintendent George
Russell.
“I worry now how Eastside can be
Eastside if half or more of the teachers are
deciding they don’t want to be Eastside,”
Russell said at a School Board meeting
March 8.
“It’s not right for the teachers to get
beat up by parents,” Russell said of the
Eastside teachers who have supported
talking with Harris teachers about a merger
or some other collaborative hybrid. Harris
is 67 percent free and reduced lunch (FRL)
and 25 percent Latino, while Eastside is 5
percent FRL and 1 percent Latino.
Russell said given the opposition of
Eastside parents to a merger with Harris,
he may want to close both schools.
“Probably the way I feel now, I’d make a
recommendation to close them both.”
Several School Board members shared
Russell’s dismay at the parents at Eastside,
one of the whitest and wealthiest schools in
the entire state. “I was disheartened by what
I heard from the parents of Eastside,” said
board member Alicia Hays. “I don’t think
Eastside is viable because I don’t think they
are going to be able to diversify.”
“To the extent there is an exodus of
teachers, that suggests to me a viability
question,” said board member Craig Smith.
The merger/collaboration offered Eastside
parents the opportunity to show their “good
faith” commitment to diversify, Smith said.
“What we’re hearing is they don’t want to
do that.”
Some board members said they would
like Russell to meet with the teachers to see
if the merger still has any chance of success.
Board member Yvette Webber-Davis said,
“I think there is at least some sentiment on
the board for trying to give Eastside and
Harris a chance.”
But board members expressed concern
that the apparent threat to close Harris but
not Eastside if the merger failed would
make merger negotiations between the two
schools unequal.
Board member Charles Martinez said it
is “untenable” if the board is saying that if
Eastside parents won’t agree to the merger,
“Harris, you’re closed and Eastside, this is
your building.”
Board member Smith shared the concern.
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“The net effect
is they [Eastside
parents] can do
what they want.
That outcome is
bothersome
to
me.”
“I am concerned
here that one side
has more power,”
board member Jim
Torrey said. As it
stands now a small
group of Eastside
parents can say,
“‘It doesn’t work,
it doesn’t work, it
doesn’t work,’ and
they win.” Torrey
said. “That doesn’t
feel good to me.”
But
board
member
Eric
Forrest said he’d already made up his
mind. “I think the right thing to do is to
close Harris.” Forrest argued that the south
Eugene area has too many school buildings
for the number of students. He suggested
that the board close the Harris building and
move Eastside and Fox Hollow to the old
Willard building, displacing 400 charter
school students.
Torrey suggested moving Eastside to
the old Bailey Hill school building in west
Eugene. He said moving the alternative
school to that location would do more to
diversify it than the Harris site in South
Eugene. “I don’t sense we’re going to get
the diversity there.”
Russell questioned if Eastside could be
viable as a stand-alone school with only 145
students. He noted that Parker parents and
staff had complained about friction in co-
locating with the school, and Fox Hollow
representatives had said they feared the
same result if they were forced to co-locate
with Eastside.
The board spent most of the three-hour
meeting on March 8 discussing the Harris-
Eastside quandary. On other “Schools of the
Future” recommendations to keep Coburg
elementary open and deny most school
transfers to South Eugene High School
and Roosevelt Middle School, the board
appeared largely in agreement.
Two board members, however, suggested
that Adams neighborhood Elementary may
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need to be closed, something Russell did
not recommend.
Smith noted that Adams, at 186 students,
does not meet the district’s enrollment
target of 300. “Does Adams continue to be
a viable school?” he asked.
Torrey said the district should tell the
school it is at jeopardy if proposals to
increase enrollment fail. “If this doesn’t
work, you are potentially on the block.”
Forrest said that kind of talk could hurt
efforts to attract more parents to the school.
“We need to be careful of the language we
use.”
Martinez said there is no agenda to
close the school, which is 59 percent FRL.
“I wouldn’t want the Adams community to
fear that.”
The school district has a history of
targeting schools with higher percentages
of FRL, a common measure of poverty, for
closure. The closure choice, however, may
be indirect.
State data and widely accepted
educational research indicate that schools
with higher FRL tend to have lower test
scores due to the frequent challenges
of teaching kids in poverty. In turn, the
higher-income parents who tend to shop
for schools in Eugene’s choice system
often choose schools with higher test
scores on state published report cards. That
leaves the schools with more poor students
with declining enrollment and subject to
closure.
Alternative school parents have pointed
to test scores and enrollment as measures of
their school’s success and lack of success at
some neighborhood schools. But the scores
and subsequent enrollment shifts may be
more a factor of demographics than bad
teaching or curriculum, according to Steve
Slater, a testing analyst with the Oregon
Dept. of Education.
Slater said a given school’s test scores
can often be largely predicted by the FRL
and other demographic factors such as
student mobility, English language learners
and attendance. “They tend to be predictors
that are signifi cant,” Slater said. “It’s fairly
accurate. The ranks are stable from one
year to the next.”
“I would hope there would be other
factors besides the test scores,” Slater said
of what’s going on in Eugene with choice
and school closures. “It’s kind of a sad
situation.”
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EUGENE WEEKLY MARCH 13, 2008 13