Pushback on Lawrence restructuring

After publicly unveiling a restructuring plan that will be implemented next September, Lawrence School District officials found themselves responding to parents’ questions and trying to find an entity to lease the Number Five School.

The district’s plan is to close the school and rent it to an organization that caters to special-needs children, while the district retains ownership. The school’s top floor would accommodate the 105 special-needs students who now attend schools outside the district.
Officials said that an estimated $350,000 could be generated from leasing the building.
Parents’ concerns focused on the learning environment, however, especially among those with children in third or fourth grade, who would attend what is now the middle school.
The restructuring is based on the Princeton Plan, which aligns school districts based on grade levels rather than where people live in the community. “The realignment, as presented, represents a sea change to the paradigm in this district,” said Murray Forman, president of Lawrence’s Board of Education. Forman added that the plan would proceed unless a “fatal flaw” is discovered, but he said he doesn’t foresee that occurring.
District officials plan on dividing the middle school building in two, with separate entrances, schedules, cafeterias, gymnasiums, main offices and principals. There is enough space to create 23 new classrooms, and there are plans for a music and art suite as well.
The district held a public meeting on Oct. 29 to hear residents’ comments. Audrey Scott, a parent of a Number Five School student, spoke for many when she said, “With third- and fourth-graders in [the middle school] building, you’re losing control from them being in a smaller building. They’ll be exposed to older kids.”
North Woodmere resident Dominique Dash, who has a first-grader and a second-grader in the district, said she was upset by the changes. She told the Herald that she wants every student to receive the education they are entitled to. “I want equality for every child,” Dash said, “not just special-needs children, not just those learning English, those below average and those above average.”
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Ann Pedersen, who is also the principal of the Number Four School, said the students are receiving the education they should through the rigorous Common Core curriculum, and the restructuring should not change that. “There are now shifts in the way we ask students to write from sources, balance fiction and nonfiction and present arguments to support a position based on text-based evidence,” Pedersen said.
Middle School PTA Co-president John Loughlin admitted that when the plan was first explained to him and his fellow co-president, Gregory Wright, they had concerns of their own. “We still believe a lot more can be done, but there is enough communication between the elementary schools and middle school so the students are prepared when they get here, and this restructuring will be one of the solutions,” Loughlin said, that will help the district improve student performance.

Leasing the building
Finding a tenant to rent space in a school building takes much less time than selling the building, according to John Pujia, a senior director at the Plainview-based Greiner-Maltz, which specializes in marketing school properties. “A lease is much quicker than a sale,” he said, “and [the duration of the lease] could be up to 10 years without a public referendum.”
Greiner-Maltz marketed the Number Six School, which Lawrence sold to the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns following a public referendum in March, in which the sale was approved.
Pujia said that school space is currently being rented at $15 per square foot, and that determining who is responsible for maintenance or repairs of a building depends on how the lease is structured. “A landlord is typically responsible for structural repairs such as the roof, [while] the renter pays for maintenances, repairs to pipes and its own utilities,” he said.
Superintendent Gary Schall said that the Number Five School would be marketed to find a suitable tenant. “There will be a formal process for finding tenants/partners,” he said, “and all proposals will be considered based on the amount of revenue generated and cost benefits to the district.”

Central office moving
Along with the restructuring, all central office functions, such as transportation, business and offices for the superintendent and assistant superintendents, would shift from the middle school to the high school. Money from the sale of the Number Six School would be used to fund the renovations at both the middle school and high school.
To help students and parents become more comfortable with their new schools, the district will hold an open house at the middle school on Nov. 15, at 10 a.m., for grades three, four and five. There will be Family Fun nights for those grades on Jan. 8 in the middle school’s cafeteria, and one for grades one and two on Jan. 15 at the Number Two School. On March 3 there will be Parent Like a Champion fun nights at both locations.
The district is requesting comments from residents at feedback@lawrence.k12.y.us.

Have an opinion about Lawrence’s restructuring? Send your letter to the editor to jbessen@liherald.com.