School closings effect communities...

We understand the dismal situation the district finds itself in right now. The term being used—'budget crisis'—seems to be accurate. The economy sucks right now so the state of Illinois is in a budget crisis and scrambling to figure out which programs it can cut to stay afloat, meanwhile not having the money it promised to our school district, who'd been counting on the money. The situation in Rockford is also quite grim with our high unemployment rate. People out of work are often unable to pay their taxes, which means there is less money the district has to work with. The questionable spending habits of the district, and our superintendent in particular, aside (though perhaps the distribution of our tax dollars is pertinent) cuts inevitably need to be made. The targeted proposal to close area neighborhood schools, however, is troubling. What is a neighborhood school to a community? It's a question we may not be able to answer until the school is gone and the building sits like a rotting piece of fruit. It is like a magnet for troublesome teens who find spray painting obscenities amusing. Windows are broken and graffiti plagues the walls and suddenly the neighborhood isn't what it once was. I know this because the school I attended as a child, my neighborhood school growing up, closed down. It was rumored to have become home to squatters who shot up in the old classrooms and pissed on the gym floor. The neighborhood crime rates soared and the climate went from saying hi to strangers to avoiding eye contact in fear of who this person might be, what this person could be capable of. It became a dirty, run down, distrustful neighborhood—a stark contrast to the clean, lively, friendly neighborhood when the school was open. Because we are interested in working with communities here in Rockford, I do think the proposed school closings are of concern to us in RootsUp. The schools that close may be communities we want to explore working in to preemptively stop the negative neighborhood effects of a closed school. When we are working on projects to advance early literacy and the district proposes to close an early childhood center and move to half day kindergarten, it makes me think the need for our work will be that much greater should the proposal be actualized. Whatever the school board decides will have a deep impact on Rockford's community and may define the direction of our projects in the upcoming years.