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Closing Gorton is justifiable only if you want to continue with a k-6 elementary model. By moving to a middle school model and creating a 6-8 schools the three junior highs are actually better utilized, space-wise, than they are by closing Gorton. Most other districts in the state have this model and many of them perform better than we do at the secondary level. And not all of those communities that do are more affluent than Warwick, by the way. If you, look at the current K-6 enrollments and then weight them accordingly, there is simply not enough room to place 6th graders in two junior highs until at least the 2021-2022 school year. This would open up space in the elementary's, most of which are currently at 60-70% capacity. At that point, a discussion about elementary's takes place to address issues like all day K, how the airport expansion effects Wickes, etc. Closing three elementary's saved approximately $2.7 million. Closing Greene saved about $800-$900k. (Most if not all of this comes from staff reductions). So here we are looking to save $1 million, when we could save a bit less than that by moving to the middle school model and consolidate an elementary, which should not be too difficult with the 6th graders out of them. And, we would be teaching the Common Core curriculum in the model for which it was designed! It makes no sense to keep "swimming upstream" with our elementary model. All of this first requires a long term plan and that is currently what we do not have. As for vouchers, most voucher programs I've seen allow for them in cases where a school is failing as defined by State measures. Plus, there are some areas where vouchers have been very successful and some where they have not so I think the jury is still out on them. If other community's public schools can perform highly, so can Warwick. Warwick is not an urban school district with all of the problems that are inherent in those districts. Other communities perform better than we do who are more and less affluent than we are. It can be done but it requires leadership, vision, and collaboration between Administrators, teachers (and their unions), and parents. Over the years these have been lacking.

From: Reasons to save Gorton

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