Letter to the Editor in the Grand Forks Herald:
Marsha Gunderson, Grand Forks, column: In GF, school-closing costs may exceed the benefits
Cost savings are important to us all. But on balance, will the savings really offset our losses?
By: Marsha Gunderson
GRAND FORKS — Schools, especially elementary schools, are the sustaining element in living, livable neighborhoods. The very existence of an active school can provide energy, identity and a sense of community for its students, parents, teachers and neighbors.
Active neighborhood schools support their immediate community in so many ways:
- Walkability promotes healthy children and reduces car emissions and potential vehicle accidents.
- Property values are maintained because homes near schools appeal to a broader segment of the population.
- After-school programs are within walking distance of homes.
- Affordable and lower-income neighborhoods retain direct access to quality education.
- Neighbors have a venue for voting, meetings, community activities and emergency shelter.
- Children have a safe, familiar, accessible playground.
- School district funding is supported more broadly by non-parent voters, who develop ownership for the school through community activities.
School closure also has impacts well beyond the immediate effect of removing children and parents from their home school. The natural cycle of neighborhood rejuvenation — older owners selling to young families — is disrupted when young parents look elsewhere for homes close to schools. Property values diminish when a significant proportion of the buying market looks elsewhere because there is no neighborhood school.
Lower-income parents and children become disenfranchised as schools are removed from the immediate vicinity. Income from property taxes is reduced as housing stock devalues.
Older, historic neighborhoods have a livability and sense of community that often is missing in newer sections of town. But, as with small towns, that sense of community is tied to its school.
Without the school, student access suffers, parent-teacher relationships decline, community programs suffer for lack of a friendly venue and even voting patterns are subject to change. And as non-parents become more and more removed from a neighborhood school and from the families of the children it serves, monetary and emotional support for school issues erodes.
The loss of a neighborhood school endangers Grand Forks’ historic cultural and built environment just as surely as do floods and fires. But the neighborhood dies slowly, unlike the process brought about by a natural disaster. And rebuilding is not an option without the nexus of a school.
Cost savings are important to us all. But on balance, will the savings really offset our losses?
I urge Herald readers to carefully consider the broader community health as West, Wilder and Lewis and Clark schools are discussed. We encourage the Grand Forks School District to adopt a proactive approach to rejuvenating and maintaining these neighborhood schools in order to better meet their stated goal of providing opportunities for all students to reach their maximum potential.
Gunderson, the Herald’s marketing manager, is chairperson of the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission.
