School closures need clear strategy

The state Department of Education has been engaged in a more productive review of public school facilities since changing the rules of the school-closure process two years ago and abandoning some of its more pointless, bureaucratic steps. It must be allowed to stay that course, once the overseeing Board of Education does a necessary review of its policy on school closure.

Ultimately the school board can’t afford to return to the old, inefficient model of review. Previously, for example, a task force was set up to conduct the study of the underutilized school in question, the result being that the discussion became endlessly mired in lobbying by interest groups, none of them interested in closing any school, whatever the reason.

Since then, the work of studying schools proposed for closure has been left where it should have been all along: with DOE staff who have the best information at hand for preparing a comprehensive review of the situation — enrollment trends, hardships the closure could cause and the savings that could be accrued. This hasn’t made proposals to close schools any less controversial, but it has at least produced useful information and enabled more timely decisions.

The fledgling appointed school board had its first close encounter with this issue in recent weeks over the proposal to close Likelike Elementary School, part of a push to save operating funds by consolidating small schools.

The board resisted this idea for a number of reasons, including the uncertainty of its long-term wisdom. Yes, recent decisions to spin off sixth-grade classes to middle schools had freed up space in elementaries such as Likelike, but would an upward tick in enrollment continue, meaning that space would be needed once again in the near future?

Finally, and wisely, the board decided to postpone even taking the matter to a public hearing. The board’s finance chairman, Wesley Lo, questioned getting the community all upset when it isn’t yet clear this move will be needed. The BOE, he said, decided that it needed a clearer strategy to guide its decisions.

That’s a good move, and the board is already devising a worthwhile list of questions.

Specific to Likelike: How should school performance factor into the decision? What about money recently spent on upgrades at the school? Will any money saved be redirected to improve student learning?

And, in general, what are the characteristics — such as facility and equipment and student-teacher ratio — of a model school? Can any of that be achieved through added online classes or other nontraditional approaches?

The board plans to recess into a retreat in the coming weeks to hone its strategy and decide whether any rules need further changing. This may prove to be a fruitful exercise, as long as the board comes up with that strategy in good time and avoids micromanaging the closures process altogether.

The past school board and the DOE reformed the review process in order to find efficiencies in a statewide network of schools that had less than optimal locations to serve a school-age population that had shifted westward. The fact that the economy crashed and decimated public-school budgets has merely made the need for savings even more urgent.

The BOE is the policymaking body guiding the schools, and, as such, it needs a clear strategy. But it also needs political will to make the hard and often unpopular calls, redirecting taxpayer resources to their most effective use. This is the time to press ahead in that direction, not to slip back into bad habits of the past, when it was easier to dither than to decide.