With the Columbus Municipal School District preparing to start consolidating elementary schools in the next school year, the district is hosting community meetings to keep stakeholders informed on the changes.
But as the inevitable closing of Franklin Academy after this school year creeps closer, some parents are concerned about what the impact of those changes will be.
“I’m just trying to understand – has there been any consideration into the impact on parents with kids in multiple grades that are now being distributed, specifically from Franklin, so widely across the district?” Morgan Dentry, who is the father of two Franklin students, asked Superintendent Stanley Ellis during a community meeting on Tuesday.
The strategic plan set by the district in 2018 calls for its five elementary schools to be consolidated by grade span by the 2027-2028 school year. Currently, the schools operate on a magnet school model, meaning each campus houses kindergarten through fifth grade and has a specific learning focus, like aerospace and science or technology and communication.
Under Ellis’ implementation plan, Franklin and Fairview Elementary will close, and students at those schools will be distributed by grade. Fifth and sixth grades will relocate to Hunt Intermediate School, which will open for the 2025-2026 school year. Pre-K through first grade will be housed at Stokes-Beard Elementary, second grade at Sale Elementary and third and fourth grade at Cook Elementary.
The board of trustees approved the plan in January, slating Franklin Academy to close by next school year and Fairview by 2026-2027. Students at those schools will be distributed by grade.
With children in multiple grades at Franklin who could be separated by the closure, Dentry said he and other parents are worried about the logistical challenges of consolidation, like how their students will get to different schools across the district.
“I assume that there’s been talks about improving bus routes (and) incorporating more drivers, but I don’t hear any of that talk,” he said. “So the concern has always been, are there enough drivers available for the increased load on various drop off points?”
Ellis said the district has been working on improving bus routes to ensure students aren’t on the bus for a long time. Bus drivers, he said, are an ongoing concern.
“That’s something that we’re working through now, and we will provide you guys with the update on that,” he said. “But as far as bus drivers are concerned, bus drivers are hard to find. It’s a national issue. It’s not just coming to Columbus, but – and I’m not making an excuse – we’re going the best we can with the drivers that we have. We’re always recruiting.”
‘It’s a part of the plan’
Because the district won’t go into full grade span until 2026, Dentry wondered if there is any opportunity to send two students from Franklin in different grades to the same school regardless of the new grade distribution.
“As far as grade span is concerned, we’re going to have to go grade span because it’s a part of the plan,” Ellis said, adding that solutions to Dentry’s specific student concerns could be discussed one-on-one.
The district is committed to making sure parents are well informed throughout the process, Ellis said.
“We want to make sure that we keep you guys informed, so that you know what’s taking place,” he said. “… I’m going to be having a meeting at Franklin with those parents in the next week or so to talk to them and see if they’ve got any concerns.”
Ellis shared the expenditure budget for Franklin, which costs the district more than $95,000 on operating building service and another $80,000 for utilities, including water, sewer, electricity, gas and waste disposal. The school is also currently operating at only 47% capacity, according to the Pryor Morrow facilities study the district commissioned in 2023.
Franklin opened as the state’s first free public school in 1821. With that much history, the school’s aging facilities can be expensive to maintain, Ellis told the audience of roughly 20 people.
“It’s kind of like an old house,” he said. “You’re always going to have to fix on it. There’s always something going on.”
The district will host another community meeting on May 6, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Sandfield Community Center. A final meeting scheduled for May 13 at the East Columbus Gym will start at the same time.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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