The Kansas City Missouri School District, KCMSD, approved the Right Sizing plan March 10. This plan proposed by Superintendent Dr. John Covington will save money in the Kansas City district by combining some public schools and closing others.
Out of 61 total school buildings in the district, 28 are either closing or combining with another school.
On KCMSD’s website, Covington said the next step after the School Board has approved of the Right Sizing plan is the ‘Transformation Plan, a blueprint that will guide us through a reorganization of the District.’Â In this step of the condensing process, Covington and his team will determine ‘new attendance boundaries’Â for the schools. In other words, they will be deciding which neighborhoods or areas attend certain schools.
‘The Right Sizing proposal my team has submitted was crafted after receiving responses from more than 1,400 community members during five public forums and through an on-line survey,’Â Covington said in an article on KCMSD’s website. Covington also said the goal of the proposal is to use the districts current resources more effectively to provide better programs for the students.
Lincoln College Preparatory Middle School will be combining with Lincoln College Preperatory High School so that grades sixth through twelfth will be located in the same building.
Chanda Reed, a junior at Bishop Miege High School, attended Lincoln from 2004 to 2007. She sees both the pros and cons to the Right Sizing plan.
‘The plan works for the schools that have a lower rate of [attendance],’Â Reed said. ‘It’s good if you have a building that could hold 500 [students] but only 75 showing up. It’s just wasting tax money.’Â
However, she believes the cons outnumber and outweigh the pros.
‘Some cons are people getting laid off, seniors having to adjust their last year, and rival schools combining,’Â Reed said.
Reed also questioned the maturity of sixth graders that will have to be in the same school as older seniors. She hopes the older students will not take advantage of the younger students in any way.
Claire Mansur, a sophomore at Lincoln, says many of her classmates are concerned about the logistics of the combination.
‘A lot of kids are frustrated with the choice to combine the two schools because our school is small and we don’t understand how things will work like passing periods and lunch shifts,’Â Mansur said.
Mansur thinks the school district should have left Lincoln alone because the middle school is suitably sized and in decent shape.
Many other Lincoln students disagree with the Right Sizing plan, going as far as creating a Facebook group to dispel their criticisms.
Overall Mansur feels that although she does not know what her school will be like with the Right Sizing plan in action, she knows there will be many changes in her school life. On KCMSD’s website Covington promised that the School Board will work ‘quickly and collaboratively.’Â
‘We ask for the patience of our families as we bound over the first hurdle,’Â Covington said on KCMSD’s website.
