| School right-sizing plan probed for flaws |
| By Christian Morrow |
Published
03/1/2007
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Metro
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Unrated |
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School right-sizing plan probed for flaws
The first indications that the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Right-Sizing Plan may have been not quite right were increases in discipline problems.
These rose to the point where the district decided to move higher grade students from its two-building Faison Academy to the near-empty Westinghouse High School after several violent student incidents.
 | ITS ALIVE—The Pittsburgh School Board voted Feb. 20 to reopen Margaret Milliones Middle School building for the 2007-2008 school year. It will house Vann Elementary School, Rogers CAPA Middle School, and four early-childhood programs. The building was initially closed as part of the district’s Right-Sizing Plan.
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Then last week, the board approved a plan to reopen the Milliones Middle School building to house the Rogers CAPA students—who’d already been right-sized from Belmar to East Liberty three years earlier—and students from Vann, some of whom had previously attended Milliones.
The preliminary version of the Right-Sizing Plan would have left Milliones open.
Though one counterintuitive tenet of Chaos Theory states that the first results of correctly optimizing a complex system should be more disorganized, the question of how much chaos parents, students and teachers can tolerate remains open.
So, are these district’s modifications of its reorganization plan to be expected, or a sign that its reorganization plan is flawed? School board Director Randall Taylor said he is trying to find out.
“I’ve been encouraging the board to hold a special meeting to review where we stand as of March 7,” he said. “I’m hoping to get a report from superintendent on where we’re being successful and where we’re not and why.”
“I think it’s positive that adjustments were made, even if made mid-year,” he added. “But there may be problems elsewhere we need to correct. And we need to know where the positives are so we can expand them and make the plan successful.”
Though eliminating excess capacity and saving money were only two of the factors driving the right-sizing plan, millions of dollars have been spent reconfiguring buildings to accommodate different student populations.
More money was to be spent adding a gymnasium to Vann, until district Chief Operations Officer Rick Fellers told the board and the administration it could save money by moving Vann’s 275 students and Rogers’ 315 students to the Milliones building and still have room for growth and four early-childhood classrooms.
The plan, approved by the board Feb. 20, was developed and driven by a task force comprised largely of Hill District residents. Though opposed to the original Milliones closing, Director Mark Brentley Sr. said its reopening is indicative of what’s wrong with right-sizing.
“It’s been political and it continues to be. The loudest community groups with political ties get what they want,” he said. “Everyone else suffers.”
Brentley said some schools will have to “write the whole year off academically” because little teaching is actually being done due to violence and problems with the curriculum. He supports Taylor’s call for a review of the plan.
“Right-Sizing is clearly failing. Putting middle-school kids in a high-school environment is just one indicator,” he said. “We need to call a complete halt, get an independent evaluation, and then plan for district-wide adjustment to deal with victims of this plan.”
Superintendent Mark Roosevelt, who was unavailable for comment, has always stressed that academic improvement was the primary motivator in the Right-Sizing changes.
This year’s PSSA tests are scheduled for March 12 through March 23. The Terre Nova evaluations are scheduled for April 23 through May 4.
(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
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