Letter from a parent,

Dear DCSD Representatives,

Evansdale Elementary has been a shining star in my life this year. After years of anticipation, my child started kindergarten there this year. Every time I enter the school, I feel the pulsing heart of our community. You may not be able to place numbers on the direct value of this community, but there are data to support its impact on the students, the neighbors, the economy, and general health and safety. I also want you to know how much more than a dot on a map our school is for my community. The diversity of the student population, the cultural exchange at school events, the incubator environment that provides elementary-age students a place to feel safe while preparing for success in middle and high school are all so vital. In addition, the strong parent and community engagement is something we would lose in a larger school. Our school provides a unique learning opportunity as a magnet and French dual language immersion program. It has a large lot for expansion, keeps traffic off busy streets, and already meets the threshold for which the district has determined ideal enrollment, with projected increases. As such, I'm not even sure why the school appears on a list for potential closure.

I am not disagreeing that there will likely need to be some closures and consolidation, but the current timeline is not sufficient to engage communities appropriately and meaningfully to ensure the proposed changes are truly the best course of action.

Confusing messaging that is not accessible to low-literacy or non-English speaking households, a feedback timeline that did not include enough time for organized thoughts from each impacted community, and cherry-picking how and what questions the district chooses to answer is enough to get us all feeling dismissed and frustrated. Pursuing this effort at speed in the wake of legal allegations and leadership turnover without acknowledging this in meetings is difficult to understand.

My asks:

1) Slow down this process.

2) Seek direct feedback from each of the schools impacted by Scenario One. Hold meetings with schools individually and each high school cluster.

We can work together to figure this out since we all care about the long-term sustainability of the district. What is unclear is whether the board also considers measures of student success, economic (e.g., home values and job growth), or transportation (moving more traffic onto already gridlocked roads) concerns in these proposals. We want to be on your side. We want to support public education that is fair, equitable, and of high quality. Please help us by including us.

Please consider these requests. Thank you for your time, and I do acknowledge the difficulty in making these district-wide decisions.