School review panel recommends closing O’Connell

JEFFERSON COUNTY – O’Connell Middle School is the only Lakewood candidate on the list of recommended school closures that will go to the Jefferson County School Board for a final decision next month.

The only other significant change for Lakewood students is a recommendation to move Devinny Elementary’s 6th grade pupils to the adjacent Dunstan Middle School.

Suggested closures in other areas of the district include Arvada and Ken Caryl middle schools as well as five elementary schools: Pleasant View, Pennington, Martensen, Zerger and Fitzmorris.

Earlier options included selling a number of the schools on the final hit list, but O’Connell was not among them.

If adopted by the school board, the savings could amount to as much as $5.88 million a year according to district estimates. The changes would require a one-time cost of $1.6 million, according to the estimates.

O’Connell’s suggested closure came Monday when a 30-member task force submitted the short list of school use-changes, consolidations or closures and the demolition of as many as 120 temporary classroom buildings district-wide. The taskforce, which includes community-members and school district employees, since March has been looking sifting through demographic facts and figures, public comment, how schools rate based on parental preference, operating costs, the condition of each building, enrollment, capacity and academic achievement.

The only other significant change for Lakewood students is a recommendation to move Devinny Elementary’s 6th grade pupils to the adjacent Dunstan Middle School.

Suggested closures in other areas of the district include Arvada and Ken Caryl middle schools as well as five elementary schools: Pleasant View, Pennington, Martensen, Zerger and Fitzmorris.

Earlier options included selling a number of the schools on the final hit list, but O’Connell was not among them.

Earlier in the task-force deliberations, school district superintendent Cindy Stevenson said some sites “wouldn’t be very logical to put on sale because they are not in a place where people are going to develop” new projects.

“If you close a school, you have to look at whether you save it or you keep it,” Stevenson said. And a variety of people want to buy school buildings,”

Although Stevenson said the district is not near the financial brink, thanks to about $160 million in reserves compiled with the understanding “that we would have to spend them down” eventually. “It has to do with A: being efficient and using every dollar we can. And B: Do we need all our facilities,” she said.

The task force decided on the final 12 recommendations after whittling an initial list of 45 options, then cut it to 30 before a round of public meetings in November to put the ideas before citizens.

And they got an earful.

The three public meetings gathered comments of support as well as heated opposition, suggested alternatives and emotional appeals to save schools or programs in question.

At the district’s Nov. 11 public meeting at Alameda High School, a number of O’Connell parents, former students, business and community leaders turned out to argue against closing the school.

Mike Welk, a parent and a businessman, said vacant buildings can harm neighborhood property values and suggested that impact be added to the criteria the panel because the district depends on property taxes.

Sandy Roberts, the parent of a student at Alameda and a former O’Connell employee questioned the idea of moving O’Connell students to the high school, and noted that students at the middle school have been held back because he was too young and not mature enough to move to the high school. He also questioned the number of other administrators at each high school and said think there are better ways to trim the budget.

Others voiced concern about the loss of student-police partnerships that have been cultivated at O’Connell, the potential reduction of ethnic diversity, the possible chilling affect O’Connell’s closure could have on academic achievement and other issues.

The task force also looked at the district’s vacant land inventory, but found that most of those properties are encumbered by agreements with cities or the county that restrict their disposal.

The school board is expected to consider the task force recommendations at its Jan. 14 meeting.