My son starts kindergarten next year. His elementary school is a block and a half from our north-side house. I’ll be able to walk him there every morning; we cross just one tiny, quiet street.
This is not an uncommon privilege in many neighborhoods in the Madison Metropolitan School District. Madison has many neighborhood elementary schools; there are two other elementary schools within a mile and a half radius of my house.
But families living in the Moorland-Rimrock neighborhood have a very different experience. Most students from this neighborhood south of the Beltline are bused 6 miles to Frank Allis Elementary School, which means driving through the city of Monona. Yet there are 450 elementary-age children living in the neighborhood, more than there are enrolled in 22 of the district’s 32 elementary schools.
The students who don’t go to Frank Allis largely go to the dual-language Nuestro Mundo Community School, a 5-mile bus ride. Nuestro Mundo is currently housed in an old elementary school that the school district leases from the Monona Grove School District. This relationship is not perfect; because it is a leased facility, for instance, the Madison school district is unable to upgrade the aging playground.
The extra time on the bus adds up. It’s more time when students aren’t learning or playing physically active games. Parents have to have their kids ready even earlier in the morning. And it creates additional barriers for working families who need after-school care.
Busing students from the Moorland-Rimrock neighborhood to two separate schools also presents serious equity issues. Eighty-one percent of students from the area are from low-income households, 89 percent are students of color, and 50 percent are English language learners. In a district that struggles with a massive achievement gap, it is shameful that these are some of the kids who have the farthest to travel to school. In most districts, schools with demographics like these are horribly under-resourced. Here in Madison, we have the opportunity to work together and build this neighborhood the newest, most well-equipped elementary school in the whole damn district.
A new school would serve as more than just a place for elementary students to learn. The health of a community is closely tied to the health of its school, which could be vital in a neighborhood split among the city of Madison, Fitchburg and the soon-to-be-dissolved town of Madison. With part of Fitchburg within Madison school district boundaries, this school would be a symbol of the entire community.
Additionally, the district has embraced the Community Schools model over the last few years, which is an evidence-based model with proven success across the country. This framework emphasizes working with families and the community to serve identified needs that might fall outside of what’s traditionally offered at a school. The services offered by a community school can include tutoring, early childhood support, and family outreach.
These schools aren’t a silver bullet, but there’s genuine promise in the idea of a community-engaged school. And building new versus retrofitting an existing facility has its advantages; there is more room for early community input with the former.
Madison residents and its school administrators love to talk a big game about equity. But are they willing to walk the walk and invest in this neighborhood? We’ll find out soon. The district is putting together two referendum questions to go before voters in November 2020. Yes, the same ballot as the presidential election.
The first referendum is a facilities referendum. The bulk of the referendum dollars will go toward desperately needed renovations at the four main high schools. But it is also likely to include funding for a new Moorland-Rimrock school. Neighborhood students that are bused to Frank Allis would go to this new school. Nuestro Mundo would find a permanent home, either in the new building or in the Frank Allis space.
The other referendum is an operations referendum meant to fill in budget gaps created by a 15 percent drop in state aid to the district. Full disclosure, my partner is an school district employee so my family could be impacted by the operations referendum. I’ll stick to talking about the facilities referendum because it’s not like I’m going to directly benefit from a new heating system for Memorial High School.
The school board should include the construction of a Moorland-Rimrock elementary school in the 2020 facilities referendum. Then, voters will have their own opportunity to take a substantive, meaningful vote for equity next fall.
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons.
