Neighbors tell social costs of closing Pratt school

The way the neighbors gathered at Spokane Valley City Hall tell it, it’s not just the kids in the Edgecliff neighborhood who need Pratt Elementary.

“The impact to the community is greater than what’s been given consideration” in a Spokane Public Schools proposal to shut down Pratt, said Sheriff’s Community Oriented Policing Effort (SCOPE) volunteer Tammie Dahl.

Several Edgecliff SCOPE members and longtime community volunteers came to the City Council’s study session Tuesday night to witness the latest in a series of public meetings on the possible closure.

At the request of the council, Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Brian Benzel and Associate Superintendent Mark Anderson gave a presentation on closing the school and how much it would save as the district looks to trim $10 million from its $285 million budget.

With about 230 students, Pratt is the smallest of the district’s schools. Declining enrollment throughout the district means less money from the state. But regardless of how many students a school has, operating costs remain the same, and Benzel told the council that sending Pratt students to nearby schools could save the district $450,000 a year.

“I do not envy the position of the board members of District 81. That is going to be an agonizing decision they make, regardless of what they choose,” Councilman Bill Gothmann said.

He questioned how the district accounted for the costs of closing the school, including factors that are harder to measure, like increased crime and the effect a change in the neighborhood would have on the students.

Edgecliff is one of the few areas where, neighbors say, most of the students at the grade school know the adults who live there by name.

“There isn’t a kid in there who doesn’t know every one of our faces,” said Debra Kirkpatrick, a member of the successful community policing effort in the low-income, high-crime area 10 years ago.

According to 2000 census data, more than 40 percent of people who live in the area make under $25,000 per year, compared with about 30 percent countywide.

City code enforcement officers, police and others have heralded the neighborhood’s efforts to crack down on meth houses and property crime.

Without the school, Kirkpatrick said, “we’ll still do what we do, but we won’t get the connection with the children,” through programs like the walking school bus, mentoring and family nights at the school.

“It’s our primary location,” said Rick Scott, who administers a federal Weed and Seed grant that has brought about $750,000 to the neighborhood’s crime fighting efforts in the last 4 ½ years.

The group’s 10-year celebration was held in the Pratt gym, and the school is designated as the safe haven required as part of the grant. With few churches or other public buildings nearby, most Edgecliff SCOPE meetings or programs that involve more than a handful of people take place there.

Scott, Kirkpatrick and others also fear that the absence of a school will deter young families from buying houses in the neighborhood they’ve worked so hard to clean up.

The alternatives for the district, though, aren’t very appealing either. In the study, district officials point out that, compared with the other elementaries, closing Pratt would have the least impact on other schools. Other items that could be cut to balance the budget include librarian hours, extracurricular activities, high school career specialists, and a day care center at Havermale.

The school board is scheduled to make its decision on the closure at its meeting April 25.