Gary residents have a critical opportunity to weigh in on the future of the city’s last public middle schools at a school board meeting on Nov. 14, where the contentious proposal to close them will be open for discussion.
The possible closure of Bailly STEM Academy and Gary Middle School for the Visual and Performing Arts was introduced at a board meeting on Oct. 3. Shuttering the schools would continue a distressing trend that has stripped the city of its public educational institutions. At least eight schools have closed since 2015.
As the Gary Community School Corporation grapples with a declining student population and financial constraints, the school district is inviting public comment on the latest potential cost-cutting effort.
The middle schools, which have undergone several reconfigurations in recent years, are some of the oldest in the district and together cost around $4 million to keep running, according to GCSC emergency manager Mike Raisor.
Presenting the plan at the early October meeting, Raisor said that money could be put toward things like renovations, competitive wages for staff or building new schools in the future. His slide presentation asserted that “District enrollment and funding should dictate the size of the district.”
But many community members are skeptical. Gary native LaTasha Hall feels the administration’s focus is in the wrong place. If enrollment is a major factor driving the closure, she said, shuttering more schools in a town that already has several vacant ones will do little to win parents over.
“Within two years, it’ll look like it’s been abandoned for 12 [years],” she said of the school buildings.
Instead, she sees lower enrollment as beneficial for students who need an individualized approach to learning. If administrators zeroed in on this and raised test scores, parents would return to the district, she said.
Hall’s kids have long been out of school, but last week’s “learning session” about the proposed closures was too important for her to sit out on. When she saw a public notice for it on GCSC’s Facebook page, she shared the post with her alumni group for Edison Middle School (which closed in the early 2000s).
Her message was a simple, but rousing call to action for fellow citizens: show up.
“I know that it’s frustrating and tiring to always have to fight for what’s deserved and what’s needed,” she wrote, “but we have to keep working hard for change.”
The “ultimate measure”
When MGT Consulting first stepped in to manage the district in 2017, one of its key metrics for the takeover was enrollment. The Florida-based firm called it the “ultimate measure of the faith of parents in the schools.”
Enrollment also brings dollars. Indiana ties funding for school districts to the number of students attending based on average daily membership, or ADM, instead of total enrollment. ADM accounts for students present on a specific day during the fall and spring semesters. In 2021, GCSC used its ADM to report that district enrollment increased for the first time in a decade.
To attract new students, campaigns have been implemented over the years consisting of billboards, mailed brochures, social media posts and events. As emergency managers changed and various plans for the district were enacted, student enrollment in Gary public schools was said to have stabilized.
Though districtwide, total enrollment has continued a steady decline that has persisted over the past two decades, going from over 15,000 students in 2003 to just under 4,000 in 2022. The rise of charter schools along with a decreasing city population and students transferring to nearby districts have all had a hand in GCSC’s shrinking size.
Despite all of this, there was never talk of enrollment issues that were specific to the middle schools, said Gary Teachers Union president GlenEva Dunham. In fact, having the two middle schools is a recent change that was proposed in 2019 to solve overcrowding issues.
Enrollment at Bailly STEM Academy and Gary Middle hovers around 700 students combined. Under the proposed closure plan, 6th graders would go to elementary schools, while 7th and 8th grade students would be moved to West Side High, making that building a combined junior and senior high school.
Raisor said alternatives such as combining Bailly and Gary or funneling Bethune Early Education students into existing elementary schools were less viable options for various financial, educational and operational reasons. If the district doesn’t proceed with the closures, Raisor said, something similar will take its place. He emphasized that a decision concerning the school closures hadn’t been made yet.
“This is what transparency looks like,” Raisor said during the learning session on Oct. 24, which left people with mixed emotions. Those who showed up were largely opposed to closing the middle schools.
School board member Akilia McCain has referred to enrollment as the root of issues facing the district and pinned dwindling numbers on slow academic progress.
“We must figure out a way to educate our students so that they understand [and] they can perform when the time comes,” McCain said.
Dunham sees the cause of enrollment decline a little differently. She thinks closures of prominent schools in anchor neighborhoods have been a kind of deterrent for parents, who might have opted to enroll their children in a school closer to their homes rather than one miles away.
“Once you burn people, it’s hard to regain their trust,” Dunham said.
The next school board meeting will be held on Nov. 14 at Gary Area Career Center from 5:30-7 p.m. Attendees who want to speak during the public comment section can sign up when they arrive, and will receive three minutes to say their piece.