School Daze

Signs of the times: With dwindling resources, the city is facing some tough choices in its school

renovation plan, including the possible closure of Blodgett Elementary School on the Near West Side. MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO

Second District Common Councilor Pat
Hogan, who supports closing Blodgett, stormed from the meeting after a
close vote that was in doubt until the last minute. “We’ve lost $4
million,” said Hogan as he left the building. Superintendent of Schools
Dan Lowengard described the mayor’s plan, which was doomed by its
removal of Blodgett from its first phase, as “crazy.” Driscoll accused
common councilors and school board members of “pandering” after the 5-4
vote on Nov. 20. At-Large Councilor Bill Ryan launched a series of
unprintable comments that had school board member Calvin Corriders, who
voted no, concerned that Ryan was about to enhance his “street-fighting
man” reputation. 

In spite of the tension and drama,
school board president Laurie Menkin said after the meeting that the
two sides were not far apart, and vowed along with Lowengard to get a
new proposal before the board in the next few weeks. Driscoll was not
so optimistic. Asked right after the vote what the next steps were, an
exasperated mayor offered, “Honestly, I have no idea.” Menkin and
Lowengard both thought that a compromise could be found before any
state aid would be forfeited. Bill Ryan, speaking the day after the
meeting, was still feeling stung by what he saw as a betrayal by
Corriders and Menkin. He was not sure that trust could be restored in
time to keep the full funding in place.

The latest proposal did not include
money to renovate Blodgett in the first phase of the JSCB project.
Instead the Driscoll-backed plan called for $2.5 million to plan the
renovation of the dilapidated Near West Side elementary school.
Driscoll offered to fast-track the Blodgett makeover by soliciting
support from private sector groups and asking the Common Council to
borrow the needed funds. 

Board members reacted when it became
clear that the intent was to close Delaware School, on Geddes Street,
and merge its student body with Blodgett. “You can’t fit 1,200 kids
into the Blodgett footprint,” argued Lowengard. “It’s crazy.” The mayor
contended that the superintendent and the school board had agreed
earlier to this plan, a notion that Lowengard denied. “You never asked
us about this,” Lowengard said to Driscoll about the closing of
Delaware.

A day before the meeting, Driscoll had
met with advocates for Blodgett, including Joe Coudriet, the money and
the mouth behind the Renovate Blodgett Coalition, to discuss ways to
keep the school open. According to Coudriet, the closing of Delaware
was never brought up at the meeting. 

“There are issues of the heart, and
issues of the mind,” said Common Council President Bea Gonzalez days
before the vote in reference to the decision she and her colleagues
faced about Blodgett, what many observers feel may be the handsomest
yet most decrepit school in the city. 

“I went there as a middle-schooler,”
said the University College dean and Democratic mayoral candidate, “and
it was old when I was there. I feel ashamed that we have kids in that
building. Everything is broken down. Parts of it can’t be used. The
auditorium is off line. The long years of neglect have put a price on
that rehab that is astronomical.”

Since early in his mayoralty, Driscoll
has been on record as saying that the renovation of Blodgett should be
a high priority. But in early November news broke that Blodgett was
being removed from phase one of the project. A media-savvy coalition
led by Coudriet of the Abundant Life Christian Center, a Cicero-based
evangelical church with a growing presence in the poorer areas of the
city, quickly emerged to fight to keep the school open.

Abundant Life, which was instrumental in
building a library at the school five years ago, joined with
representatives from Syracuse University, the Near West Side
Initiative, the Alliance Network, the Gifford Foundation and others for
a Nov. 18 rally at the school, followed by a community meeting in the
school cafeteria. 

The rally was a media event not often
seen in that part of town. Trucks brought in by Abundant Life bathed
the steps of the school in light. Suburban parents pushing
state-of-the-art strollers mingled with urban parents and kids whose
coats struggled to keep the chilly air off their chests. Longtime
pastor of St. Lucy’s Church Jim Mathews stood with Action Network
leader Walt Dixie and the Rev. John Carter of Abundant Life. Hundreds
of participants waved commercially printed, full-color signs pleading
for the school to be renovated.

Issues of the heart were clearly at the
forefront of people’s minds. “If you close this school,” said, Janice
Hill, a social worker at Vera House, “it’s like putting these kids in
foster care.” Hill’s three children attended Blodgett and she later did
her social work internship there. “It’s like they’ve given up on the
kids.”

Toward the end of the rally, Gonzalez
made her way to the microphone. Bundled in a wool coat, her head
covered with a floppy cap, she told the revved-up audience that the
changed construction plan had “caught everybody by surprise. Our
children are our most precious asset, and they deserve a safe, clean
and orderly place to go to school. We have three options: to rehab
Blodgett quickly, to build a new school and use up all our resources,
or to close Blodgett.” 

The crowd held its breath waiting for a
commitment they did not receive that night. She promised the crowd only
that she would make sure to press for answers to all their questions.
“We have to get the community to work together,” continued Gonzalez.
“This is a decision that involves the whole city. This community has
felt neglected for a very long time. None of us should be proud of the
Blodgett of today.”

Inside the cafeteria, Hogan laid out the
issues as he sees them. “In an ideal world, you take this school down,
build 24 units of nice housing. Keep the gymnasium as a public
recreation center. You open the whole thing to Skiddy Park. You want a
neighborhood school—you have one, Seymour, just six blocks away.”

Councilor-at-Large Van Robinson,
interviewed after the Nov. 20 JSCB vote, shared Hogan’s assessment, and
his frustration with what he saw as his colleagues’ lack of political
courage. “How could our community have let our schools deteriorate like
this?” he asked. “Blodgett should never have gotten like that. But you
have to look at demographics. Our numbers are going down. The funding
isn’t unlimited. I look at the whole city.”

In the back of the Blodgett cafeteria,
old hand Vito Sciscioli, who worked in city government many years and
now heads the 20/20 initiative, shook his head. He had no worries that
Blodgett would be torn down. “The bricks and mortar stuff is easy. What
we need here are services for the kids,” he observed. Asked what
services the neighborhood children need, he answered simply,
“Everything.” 

Sciscioli had just come back from a
lobbying trip to Albany, and next year’s state budget weighed heavily
on his mind. “Wall Street has collapsed and New York state is reeling.
We’d better get started thinking about that.”

—Ed Griffin-Nolan

The board is set to meet again on December 4th.