Superintendent continues to address concerns over school closings

Mentor Schools is progressing through a series of five community informational meetings regarding the district’s recent announcement to close Ridge, Brentmoor and Garfield schools.

Although each meeting presents the same general information, each is intended for the families of a specific school with the intent to inform them about the closings and changes that they will be facing and allow them the opportunity to ask interim Superintendent William Porter and other board and faculty questions.

In addition to the three schools closing, the district also announced that Hopkins and Fairfax elementary schools would see changes in the attendance zone boundaries.

These changes will all be implemented for the 201819 school year.

A common question asked by parents at multiple meetings concerned transportation issues, whether transportation would be provided for their children, would they walk or would parents have to transport them.

Another concern was the different start times in the schools.

One of the questions asked at the meeting for Brentmoor was what is the usage rate going to be for Memorial Middle school and the new elementary school going into what is now Ridge Middle School.

Porter said the new elementary school would have about 750 students, but he could put about 850 students there if he wanted it into the 80-90 percent usage zone, and that Memorial would be in the lower 80 percent.

“Those numbers have to settle a little bit because there is a little bit of intradistrict transferring that could happen between Memorial and Shore so the dust will have to settle on that,” he said. “Those buildings will land in the 850 to higher 800s and your percentage will probably be in the 80-90 percent zone which is ideal.

Porter was questioned about the investment that would have to go into renovating the middle school into an elementary school with different needs.

He replied that he wanted to put more classrooms and learning spaces in there, and that there were areas such as a large media center and locker rooms that weren’t needed in an elementary school. He noted that the media center could be converted into multiple classroom and a smaller high-quality media center could be placed elsewhere in the school.

Plans for the outside include adding a blacktop space to provide parking for parent teacher conferences and other school events.

Porter sees the preschool remaining at Ridge and already having a small playground there as an advantage, but plans to add some additional equipment, possibly bringing some over from Brentmoor or Garfield schools.

There was a question from an attendee who was curious to know what the plans were for the properties of the two schools that are closing.

“We wouldn’t do anything right away,” Porter said. “We want to get past the transition point, but once we get past the transition point those would be put up for sale and see what we could get. Those would each have different possible advantages depending on who was looking at it.”