SUBMITTED BY EMERSON PTA

Emerson Junior High School
Parent-Teacher Association
2121 Calaveras Street
Davis, CA 95616

March 17, 2008

Chair Allen and Board Members
Davis Joint Unified School District
526 B Street
Davis, CA 95616

Dear Davis School District Board Members,

The Parent-Teacher Association of Emerson Junior High School urges you not to close Emerson. There is so much uncertainty at this time about the final budget figures. The impact to the entire community is huge and the community’s ability to reverse this decision later will be very difficult if not impossible. The School Board is considering five options for addressing junior high school and high school structure and only one would keep Emerson open. All of these options have far-reaching consequences, many that will be unintended and unexpected. Please postpone a decision and provide the opportunity for careful consideration with input by all who could be impacted; don’t make a hasty decision with little opportunity for deliberation and input. After all, this is about our students and doing what is best for them.

We do acknowledge that District staff is working very hard to create options for you and you are working under tight time constraints and that hard decisions have to be made. We request that you postpone this decision. Please give the Davis community more time to provide helpful feedback on how to create additional revenue and reduce expenditures, for the good of all city residents and workers, and most especially all students, for the long term. As Superintendent Hammond said at the March 6 School Board Meeting, once the decision is made to consolidate the junior highs “it’s a point of no return, when we decide to do it.” Such a decision will have a huge, detrimental impact on west Davis homes and families in the short and long term. Harper and Holmes families alike value schools with manageable enrollments, and don’t want their neighborhood junior high schools to have 1,000 children attending them. By the time the March 20, 2008 meeting occurs, the majority of the Davis community will have only known about this huge, long lasting decision for a few weeks.

Please provide a facilitated public workshop to get input from all affected parties before you make a decision. Please keep our options open!

We request that you consider the following information:

Impacts on the Entire Davis Community:

• The positive climate created by the reduced size of the junior highs will be lost to all. Parents, teachers, and administrators who experienced the change since Harper was built found that behavior at all of the junior highs was greatly improved by the opening of Harper and the reduction of crowding at the junior highs.

• Increasing crowding of the junior highs back to what it was before Harper (approximately 1000 students per school) will only lead to increased bullying (and potential costs to the District), kids lost in the system, decreased sense of community, and lost opportunities for students to “shine."

• As you can imagine, a larger population will decrease the attention all junior high students will receive and the offerings that will be available to them. There will be more competition for highly coveted classes, specialty programs, leadership roles, sports, drama, etc. These are some of the reasons a new junior high was added in the first place!

• There is increased danger to students from traveling to east Davis; several hundred students will have to travel beyond biking distance from west Davis to east Davis thereby having a negative impact on neighborhood streets and major arteries such as Anderson, Covell, and F Street.

• The closing of Emerson will increase environmental impacts due to increased travel from west to east Davis. The City of Davis will be impacted as it will have to address traffic, flow, parking, and community transit options. This costs money the City doesn’t have. An environmental study should be completed before such a big decision is made.

• New housing developments are in the works in various places in the city including a large development within the Emerson boundary. We need time to evaluate the best use of school buildings to accommodate our changing community and the funding available. Closing Emerson next year was NOT part of the original plan. It is too soon to make this kind of a decision. Closing Emerson could also result in reduced enrollment as parents seek other options, such as Davis Waldorf School and attending schools outside of Davis.

• Property values in west Davis, in particular, but throughout Davis, will be impacted without a school in west Davis and more crowded schools in east Davis.

• The need to redraw boundaries will impact all three Junior High Schools significantly.

• If Emerson closes, it will likely be vandalized, as with any vacant building, and people will skateboard and climb buildings on the premises, which will result in injuries and destruction. Alternatively, the district may have to pay for a security guard and upkeep.

Features of Emerson:

• Every school in Davis has its unique, special features, and the PTA does not intend to undervalue any school. We would like to note some of the special features of Emerson: Emerson has a state-recognized garden program, highest STAR scores, Peer Helper class, great school art, and Spanish Immersion programs. Emerson is one of the most energy efficient schools in the district. Davis Senior High School’s Grad Night is held at Emerson each year due to its unique layout and to ensure student safety and supervision.

Missing/Inaccurate Information:

• We have been told that Emerson needs to be remodeled and that is why it should closed. We understand though, that while it would be great to have the school remodeled, the cost is unknown, there are insufficient funds for that at this time, and it is not necessary for safety or other reasons for many years. “It is structurally sound” as stated by Steve Newsome, a district contracted architect, at a faculty meeting on February 20, 2008. That is not a good reason to close the school.

• We have been told that Emerson has small rooms and maintenance issues, but the buildings do not make the school, the community – the teachers, students, and administration - make the school. We are content to have an old school when the alternative is to move. Maintenance issues can be addressed for $1 million (with the existing facilities funds) at another time in the future, as stated by Rey Reyes, Director of Maintenance, Operations & Facilities, on March 6 at the School Board’s meeting.

• We have been told that closing Emerson is needed to have a cushion in the budget – but with these lean times, all should share in the burden, not just middle school students and one school community.

• It keeps getting repeated that Emerson has low enrollment so it should close, but the enrollment is a function of attendance boundaries, not a function of Emerson; enrollment boundaries and other changes, such as the new UCD development, will increase and balance enrollment. The enrollment at Emerson should not be the basis for closing the school.

Ways to Reduce Costs:

• It keeps being said that it costs $566,000 (or sometimes $600,000) to keep Emerson open, but it seems that there has been no real analysis of alternatives to that cost, or of ways to save some costs or to spread them over all the schools. Such alternatives include having combined jobs or staff sharing jobs with the other schools, including that all principals and vice-principals could also teach. Also, if you close Emerson there will be ongoing costs of custodians to maintain the school grounds and no accounting is given for that. There are many ways to reduce the amount from $566,000 that do not seem to have been explored. There are also costs that would be added to other schools due to Emerson closing that have not been factored in.

Alternatives to Emerson Closure:

• Postpone the decision:

o The Davis community is committed to supporting the schools and will rally to get the money needed to save the schools.
o Before closing Emerson, with all the unintended and unexpected consequences, wait until there is an opportunity to consider a long-term plan for the schools in Davis. Several options have been proposed, but all would have significant impacts and should be considered in a thought out plan, not just in a few weeks time. We understand that one of the plans may be to shift the ninth graders to high school and turn Harper into a small high school and keep Emerson and Holmes as junior highs. Why not wait to see if that plan or another can be reasonably pursued?

• Leave Emerson open until sufficient funds are actually available to remodel it and there is a plan to deal with all the Davis secondary schools.

• Raise more money: Measure Q, which has been supported since 1983, raises more than $4 million per year. Support and pass a new parcel tax in November. Support new bond measures or additional taxes. Rent space at school sites for Community College classes, like Korematsu is currently doing. Sell the Grande site. Sell the current district office site (perhaps move district offices to Valley Oak). Sell Nugget Field. Improve the district’s attendance (the ADA will remain
the same or improve by keeping schools small).

• Give the legislature a chance to provide some early relief, for example - AB908.

All this being said, if you do choose to close Emerson, we have some special requests: that you keep any changes simple; that you move Emerson students to Holmes, not split them between Holmes and Harper; that you create the opportunity to integrate the special features of Emerson into Holmes; that you balance enrollment at Holmes and Harper so that one school is not burdened with excess enrollment during the transition period; that you allow the students to rechoose electives; that you make sure all transportation alternatives are created; and that you keep all junior high counselors to support these students.

Education Code Section 17387 specifies: “It is the intent of the Legislature to have the community involved before decisions are made about school closure or the use of surplus space, thus avoiding community conflict and assuring building use that is compatible with the community’s needs and desires.”

Please give EVERYBODY in the community a chance to help you before you make a rush decision!

Sincerely,

Frances McChesney & Gustavo Soberano, PTA
Co-Presidents on behalf of the Emerson PTA

cc: Dr. James Hammond, Superintendent