Parents defend school

Cooke opened, closed twice since 1975

Friday, April 22, 2005

By AMANDA WILLIAMS

of The Register-Mail

GALESBURG - Emma Sargent has been fighting for Cooke School as a mother and grandmother for 29 years. On Thursday she faced about 25 Cooke parents and vowed to fight for their school again.

"I went to this school myself. This is the only school we have in this vicinity that these kids can call their home school," Sargent said.

The District 205 Board of Education is considering a recommendation from the administration to close Cooke at the end of the 2004-2005 school year. The official recommendation will be made at the May 9 board meeting. The board is not expected to make its decision until June.

Teachers and staff members were told Thursday about the recommendation to close the school. Parents were notified after school Thursday by a letter sent home in sealed envelopes with their children asking them to attend a meeting that night.

Superintendent Neil Sappington said Cooke students will most likely be sent to Lincoln and Nielson if the school closes, but that is subject to change.

Administrators cite declining enrollment throughout the district and a budget deficit of $1.5 million to $2.2 million for the 2005-2006 school year as reasons to close the school.

Enrollment in the district is down 7 percent from 10 years ago. Since Cooke reopened in 1995 the district has lost 149 elementary students and a total of 332 students districtwide.

But those reasons don't make closing Cooke any easier for parents or school officials.

"This is one of the worst recommendations I've had to make to the Board of Education," Sappington told parents Thursday. "I can show you figures all night long - it doesn't ease your pain, it doesn't ease the pain I have."

Sargent said she was president of the Parent Teacher Organization in 1975 when a gas explosion destroyed the south wing of Cooke. She said parents had to fight to get the school rebuilt. Since then Cooke has opened and closed twice for financial reasons.

Cynthia Corral, another former Cooke parent, also knows what it is like to fight for Cooke. She said when the district announced in 1995 it was reopening the school, parents were skeptical because of Cooke's history. She said parents were led to believe they would not lose their school again.

"We fought for that. I fought for that for the last 16 years," Corral said. "Why is it always the little guys? Why is it always Cooke School that gets hit?"

Joel Estes, director of curriculum and instruction, told Corral the decision to close Cooke was hard for him, too, because he was principal of the school when it reopened in 1995.

"It's a very difficult thing for me because I really believe in what's going on at this school," Estes said.

Sargent said the district should redraw the school boundaries to send many of the students who currently attend Lincoln to Cooke, solving the problem of Cooke's low enrollment. She said closing one of the larger schools in the district would save more money than the $500,000 the district will save if it closes Cooke.

"Enrollment-wise it's not possible to close any of the other schools because they can hold more students," Sappington said.

Sargent challenged parents to research the facts before the May 9 school board meeting and try to prove the district wrong.

"When we go to the school board we have to have facts, not just our mouths," Sargent said.

After the meeting, Sargent said she is confident the parents can defeat the district's two reasons for closing the school - enrollment and money - but that won't necessarily keep it from closing.

"They're going to close it if they want to, they just won't have those two reasons," Sargent said.

Deborah Harrison, president of the school board, told parents the board is taking the recommendation seriously.

"It's going to be a tough decision. None of us are taking it lightly. We've already had discussions about alternative solutions and we're going to have more," Harrison said. "We want you to know we hear you, we really do."