Closing Fowler High School, Delaware Academy Elementary School and Hughes Elementary School will only perpetuate the issues surrounding them. Officials should focus on providing more attention to these schools and their students.

In a New York State Education Department letter sent to Sharon Contreras, Syracuse’s superintendent of schools, Ira Schwartz, the department’s assistant commissioner, gave the school district five options for the three schools: close the schools and relocate the students; phase out the schools to replace them with new ones; create an agreement with an educational partnership organization to run the schools; convert to charter schools or allow the State University of New York — in Syracuse’s case, Onondaga Community College — to provide education.

The three schools were given state financial support and three years to improve, but did not show enough progress to be considered successful. The fact that these schools are still struggling, indicates that the school district hasn’t been able to pinpoint the problem. There are numerous factors at play, like teacher quality, lack of funding and student performance.

Given that there are a number of issues contributing to the problem, the best way for these three schools to improve would be by providing them more attention.

Closing these schools could perpetuate the problem even further, and possibly create more issues. Relocating students to other schools would strain the teacher-to-student ratio at these schools, which is already poor in New York state. It may also spread the educational resources even thinner by increasing the number of students, and drag down the quality of other schools, leading to more closings in the future.

Three of the options have potential to solve these issues: creating an agreement with an educational partnership organization to run the schools, allowing OCC to provide education or converting to a charter school.

While the Syracuse superintendent has to focus on all the schools in the city, a third party focusing on these three schools would provide a more hands-on approach with a different perspective.

Simply closing down or phasing out these schools would be a short-term solution, which could create more long-term problems. Providing more attention and resources is the best way to find a long-term solution for the needs of these schools and their students.

Published on April 16, 2014 at 1:20 am