Students and teachers across Tulsa Public Schools were busy Thursday afternoon packing up books, school supplies and projects that have accumulated in their lockers and classrooms over the school year.
But saying goodbye on the last day of classes was extra emotional for students and staff at two neighborhood elementary schools and an early childhood development center within about 2 miles of one another in west Tulsa.
About 530 students and 70 teachers and staff members don’t expect to return this fall to Remington Elementary, Park Elementary and Early Childhood Development Center-Porter because those schools are closing.
In an effort to cut costs in anticipation of a state funding shortfall, TPS officials decided to consolidate five schools where they say enrollment and use of space have been declining for years and are projected to continue shrinking until the schools are rendered unsustainable.
People are also reading…
Just three days before the last day of classes, the Tulsa school board on Monday approved Superintendent Deborah Gist’s proposal to close Remington, 2524 W. 53rd St.; Park, 3205 W. 39th St.; and ECDC Porter, 1740 W. 41st St.
Students will move from those schools to a new elementary school that will be on the campus currently housing Clinton Middle School, 2224 W. 41st St.
Clinton students will be relocated to the Webster High School campus, 1919 W. 40th St., which will be transformed into a junior-senior high school.
Gist says the consolidation will save $906,000 in the school district’s 2017-18 budget, which would help close the $12 million state funding gap she expects will result from a state budget deficit.
But since Gist proposed the plan April 5, parents and teachers at the schools that will be closed have opposed the move because, among other reasons, they don’t want to lose the tight-knit communities and unique environments at their schools.
Stephanie Martin was picking up her son and daughter from Remington Elementary on Thursday afternoon.
Martin plans for her daughter, entering fifth grade next year, to attend the new elementary school at the Clinton campus, and her son, entering sixth grade, to attend the new junior-senior high school at the Webster campus.
Martin’s concerns about her son going to Webster are partly based on her older son’s experiences when he was moved from Madison Middle School to what is now Central Junior High School during another school consolidation.
She wasn’t very happy with that transition because of the larger number of students in the consolidation junior-senior high school, and she is worried her other son will be placed in a similar environment.
“The lack of individual attention, and just not being able to, you know, I think they’re going to have issues with their education and getting behind, because the classrooms I’m pretty sure are going to be bigger, and so I’m just worried about that, for them,” Martin said.
Martin said she will be closely monitoring her children’s academic progress to determine whether to transfer them to another school district, such as Sand Springs or Owasso.
“If I see that they’re struggling, due to the changes, then that would be my big decision — to go ahead and transfer them,” Martin said.
Regardless of how the transition turns out, Martin said it is sad to leave Remington, even though her kids have only been there since November.
“I’m used to the staff here, and they’re wonderful, and just knowing that some of them are not going to transition over … makes me sad as well,” she said.
Her kids transferred from a larger school, Mark Twain Elementary School, and she has been pleased with the smaller school atmosphere at Remington, where she said the teachers work more closely with students.
“The staff was great, and that’s what I loved about it,” Martin said, adding that she is happy her daughter’s teacher plans to move to the new elementary school at Clinton.
Teachers and staff at the schools that are closing have been guaranteed jobs in TPS, and district officials have been meeting with them to learn the schools to which they would prefer to transfer.
Fewer than five of those teachers have yet to be placed at a new school site for next year, TPS spokeswoman Emma Garrett Nelson said Wednesday.
Melissa Hicks, the Remington librarian, said the day was emotional but almost too busy to allow her to stop and feel those emotions.
“Sometimes it’s hard to feel the emotions, in the midst of all the activities, until the kids walk out the door, and you walk down the halls and see all those empty lockers,” she said.
Hicks said her entire 25-year career with TPS has been at Remington. She plans to transfer to Zarrow International School next year, which is a move she had been considering before she learned of the school consolidation proposal.
Nevertheless, she is sad to leave her library at Remington.
“I’ll never have another library as beautiful as this one here, and it looks out into this beautiful property,” Hicks said. “So I’m really going to miss that — It’s been really sad.”
She said she started crying when she realized last week that it was her last storytime with students in the Remington library.
The school has designed its curriculum, to a certain extent, to integrate nature by taking advantage of the school’s 20-acre property, which includes nature trails and wetlands, Hicks said.
“I’ve done a ‘bird count’ for 10 or 12 years — things I’m not going to be able to do at another location because this property just lends itself to nature study,” Hicks said. “We have wetlands and 20 acres, and it’s very beautiful. So those are the kinds of things we’re really going to miss.”
Hicks said she and others will also miss the small staff at Remington.
“I know that it’s expensive to run a small school … but there are so many nice things about a small school,” she said. “They’re flexible. The staff can be creative. We can work together like a family. We’re in the middle of a neighborhood. I just think it’s kind of tragic anytime a neighborhood school closes.”
Lynne Waters teaches third grade at Remington, and, after working at the school for 12 years, plans to move to the new elementary school at Clinton.
While she is sure it will be exciting to move to a new school for some students, Waters said, “I think we’ve all shed tears. Not yet today, but throughout the last few weeks.”
As she packs up books in her library and says goodbye to students, Hicks says she has had so many emotions about the move, it has been difficult to separate one from another.
“It’s not just the building, it’s the family. It’s the property,” Hicks explained. “It’s sort of like moving out of a house you’ve loved and grown up in.”
