Feb 12, 2007

Letter to Ms. Haynes

Ms. Haynes,

I would like to elaborate a little on my ideas to revive SP as a high school and merge Pietzsch-MacArthur to a combined Elementary and Middle school (original letter is at the bottom of this email). Even if you think it really won't work, please at least hear me out.

I was looking at the square footage and enrolled numbers of the concerned facilities; and it seems to be quite feasible, though I don't know what a comfortable enrollment capacity is for any of these facilities.

If Bingman took on a full capacity of elementary students, that would reduce the number of elementary students at Pietzsch-MacArthur, allowing for the influx of the SPMS kids to be moved into P-Mac as a combined elementary/middle school facility. MacArthur used to be a middle school in its own right. When I went to school there ('59-62), it housed grades 7, 8, and 9. Grade 6 was held at the elementary schools. SPHS housed grades 10, 11, and 12. I wish I knew what the enrolled populations were then.

Depending on how the numbers fall, perhaps some of the high school students from Ozen who live on the east side of Ave A could return to a school more in their neighborhood, SPHS. Same would be true for the kids who might be attending West Brook and are now busing. I wish I had more concrete numbers, but I think you can get the idea and can run them with what you have available. The key is to get schools back in the neighborhood for all the grades, and the kids in those schools.

The current plan, as I see it, is denying the entire SP area of a school system with the exception of P-Mac. That's just not good. SP can be fixed. So can Bingman. And I'd venture to say at a much more reasonable dollar amount if prudence is exercised when choosing contractors and laborers.

The idea of tearing down or closing schools because they weren't maintained will not be a good selling point for a bond issue as a whole. People think why spend such an enormous amount of money to build new if you won't keep up maintenance and will be recommending tearing them down at some future date. I'd be willing to bet similar questions are being raised in the other parts of the city, but I am only focusing on SP.

Abandoning the two schools as opposed to tearing them down and leaving them to deteriorate will only postpone the inevitable, and in the meantime bring SP neighborhood down further. If that end of town could have available schools and great teachers and curriculums (they don't have to be five-star facilities!), it could begin to breathe life back into that end of town and perhaps merchants would see advantages to entering the area and thereby bring pride back. Then hopefully people would begin to repair their homes and begin feel that same sense of unity we know and that seems to have sadly been lost. There are some charming houses there that folks only need some hope that it's worth their while and investment to fix them up. Lamar is there, giving that area a huge advantage to become a desirous center of education, and at a minimum of expense and effort. It could snowball into a great asset for the whole city. And the BISD would be the ones privileged to have been the force to set it on a path of recovery.

Please pass this on to the other board members and/or any other school officials and/or even city officials who would have interest. And if you have a few minutes, I would love to know what you and the others think of my "dream" that has a real chance of becoming a reality. It can be done!! It just takes a bold -- well, not really "bold." This is just common sense and a logical approach to what has gotten out of hand and the prize is revived pride in an area that doesn't have to die.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Sherry

PS SPHS was designated as a state historical building in 1989. That should say something about the pride that we all had and still have in that building and that institution. Why hasn't it been maintained!! It should certainly not be allowed to just sit there and ruin! It's not too late!

PSS -- I do believe that everything I have suggested herein will be in compliance with all of your Committee Principles, not only No. 3 as I elaborated on below.