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This one is a big unanswered question for me. Why are 5 of the 7 recommended school closures Title I schools (meaning they primarily serve low-income families)? And why were so many lower scoring schools that are not Title I skipped in the selection process? There are a number of schools who scored lower on the closing rubric than Tudor (we ranked 24th out of 45 measured schools - ASD only has 58 elementary schools total). Many of them are NOT Title I. Including O'Malley, Alpenglow, Homestead, Chugiak, Huffman, Klatt, Scenic Park, Campbell STEM, Rogers Park, Birchwood ABC, and Trailside. Not to mention Inlet View which is getting a new building. School closures disproportionately harm student outcomes for people of color and economically disadvantaged students. So much so, that some civil rights groups have asked for federal guidance on how schools should determine which schools have closed to avoid possible discrimination violations of Title VI and Title II. California law actually spells out specific criteria that, I believe, ASD's selection process would fail if applied here. More info if you're curious: https://advancementproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024.05.30-Recommendations-for-OCR-Guidance-on-School-Closures_FINAL.-to-pdf.pdf

Especially given the apparent interest from some school board members about special/additional programs, I was planning to highlight Head Start's use of Tudor in my letter/s - especially the value of quality early childhood education to a low-income neighborhood population, particularly in light of the early childhood care issues we all know too well. I haven't seen that called out (sorry if I missed it!) so wanted to check if there was an angle I wasn't seeing, or if anyone knows if the program that's in our building would relocate somewhere where the current neighborhood kids couldn't go?

Update on our outreach efforts to potential advocacy partners. 1. State Legislators Senator Jackson & Representative Josephson: Crystal, Amie, Ryan & Tara met with both offices on 11/12. They do not want to see Tudor closed, generally supportive, and are committed to writing a letter to the school board to ask pertinent questions about how Tudor was chosen with commentary on the decision. They are also cognizant of the fact that the impetus for rightsizing is a lack of increase in BSA funding, and would like to see Tudor PTA engage in state advocacy efforts to increase public education funding sooner than later. They also emphasized that this is a local issue, and we need to make sure we engage in targeting the school board and/or assembly to engage it locally. Liz - they mentioned your email, too :) 2. Assembly Courtney volunteered to reach out to Meg Zalatel and Felix Rivera. 3. Campbell Park Community Council Crystal is working on a draft resolution of support to present at their November 21st meeting. Community members who also live in the Campbell Park area are welcome to attend. Details here: https://communitycouncils.org/servlet/content/8.html 4. Denali Montessori PTSA Tara is coordinating a meeting with the Tudor & Denali PTA Board members for November 17th.