'Clay is home': South Bend's north side rallies against proposals to close Clay High

The South Bend Tribune has invited a panel of knowledgeable community members to discuss proposed consolidation in a virtual conversation Thursday. Follow along with our Tribune Talks panel beginning at 5 p.m. on Facebook at facebook.com/southbendtribune.

SOUTH BEND — Less than a week before South Bend school board members are expected to decide the fate of Clay High School, dozens of community members called on trustees to delay their vote.

About a hundred community members filtered in and out of the Jackson Middle School auditorium over the course of two hours Wednesday night — many of them making the drive from the district's far northern neighborhoods.

The roar of students in the back of the south side auditorium at times sounded more like the cheers you'd hear in a high school gym or out at a concert. Some approached the board with tears.

Tribune Talks: South Bend School Consolidation Forum

"Clay is home," student after student said, asking trustees to think carefully about the effects of another major transition coming on the back of early coronavirus pandemic-led disruptions.

"Many of our students are behind in instruction and struggling to find their way again after a year of e-learning," said Becky Wagner, whose grandson attends Clay High School. "High school students don't have that kind of time. Their GPA is cumulative and all of these stresses and worries will stay with them."

The public forum came Wednesday night as the second of two hearings arranged by the South Bend school board ahead of a highly anticipated decision next week to shape the future of Michiana's largest school district.

The board will meet at 5:30 p.m. Monday at LaSalle Academy and is expected to take action on a series of steps recommended for consolidating schools in the under-enrolled corporation.

Consolidation proposals

The corporation has lost more than 1,700 high school students alone over the last 17 years, leading to a $12 million drop in the district’s annual education budget. Administrators, further, have looked to plug a hole of more than $19 million in annual operating revenues after recently imposed tax caps took effect.

Among consultants' recommendations are closing two schools and drawing geographic district boundaries that create clear feeder patterns into each middle and high school.

Schools slated for closure after the 2023-2024 school year include Clay High School on the north side and Warren Elementary on the far west side.

Consolidation explained: A look at when South Bend schools will merge

Warren is one of five schools belonging to the district's Empowerment Zone, an autonomous academic intervention designed to help improve student outcomes after years of underperformance in several west side schools.

Administrators have not specifically described their plans for the future of the Zone after consolidation. The schools are nearing the end of the fourth year of the Zone's initial five-year plan. The Zone's current contract with the South Bend district allows the intervention to renew automatically for another five years if local leaders take no action.

Consultants are recommending the district move Clay High School's fine arts magnet program to Riley High School. They say it would cost $16.2 million to keep the school open over the next five years and expect closing it could save $1.1 million in annual operating costs.

Clay community shows up

A small collection of community members, parents and teachers mostly opposed to proposals to close Clay attended the school board's first hearing in late March. Each speaker was given three minutes to address the board and that meeting ended about 45 minutes early when individuals seeking to speak slowed.

The same rules applied this week as a contingent of mostly Clay Township citizens and students ran out the clock on the 90-minute meeting. Board Chair John Anella let their comments run about a half hour over the hearing's allotted time.

Emotions ran high as the nearly 50 speakers, including about a dozen students, expressed their frustration with the current situation. Not a single attendee spoke in favor of Clay's closure. Some called for administrators' resignations while others called on taxpayers to vote out trustees they feel are unsupportive of Clay Township.

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Robert Smith, who ran unsuccessfully last fall to represent Clay on the district's school board, threatened legal action and has organized multiple community meetings this month with the support of local attorney Pete Agostino. The group supported by Smith and Agostino has questioned the school corporation's referendum spending and is calling for greater financial transparency.

The district passed its $54 million capital referendum in 2020, with a promise of using $34 million to "right size" the district, and began collecting money in 2021. So far, the district has taken on some deferred maintenance and secured entryway projects, but about $30 million still remains to be budgeted.

Several Clay Township supporters Wednesday night also urged the board to throw out their paid consultants' plan and to embrace an alternative developed by a fellow trustee. Mark Costello, a new board member and retired school administrator, says he'd like to give Clay High School a chance to stabilize and grow its enrollment through a clearly defined northside feeder pattern.

How will they vote? Here's what school trustees say about consolidation

His plan, presented during the board comments section of a March school board meeting, resembles consultants' recommendations for preK-8 school options open to each geographically bounded region of the school district. But Costello proposed keeping Clay open and instead closing two west side schools, Warren and Coquillard, as well as Studebaker and the old Perley school.

Costello's plan does not provide specific dollar figures or address how the district would support the millions of dollars needed to keep Clay running. However, supporters of the plan say that's reason alone for trustees to slow down and study Costello's plan.

Anella told reporters in a March press conference that Costello's plan was "part of the conversation." Though, with an influx of time-sensitive local and federal money and continued uncertainty about future school operations, South Bend administrators have expressed an urgency to move forward after a nearly two-year study of the district's facilities.

"Does the decision absolutely have to be made next week?" asked Sue Eckman, a concerned resident from South Bend's west side. "Very little has been said about (Costello's) plan. It might not work, but couldn't we take the time to review it, to put some effort into it, to see what it could do for us? Why does this decision have to be made so quickly?"

Mark your calendar

Join our Tribune Talks: South Bend School Consolidation Forum beginning at 5 p.m. Thursday on Facebook Live. Guests include South Bend Assistant Superintendent Kareemah Fowler; District 5 Trustee Stuart Greene; former IU South Bend Executive Vice Chancellor Alfred J. Guillaume; former South Bend trustee and NAACP education chair Oletha Jones; former South Bend principal Alma Powell; and South Bend parent, writer and editor Wendy Wilson.

The South Bend school board will meet at 5:30 p.m. Monday night at LaSalle Academy. The trustees are expected to hear a series of recommendations relating to consolidation, including the potential closure of Clay High School.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified where Sue Eckman lives in South Bend. This article has been updated to reflect that Eckman lives on South Bend's west side. The Tribune regrets the error.

Email South Bend Tribune education reporter Carley Lanich at clanich@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @carleylanich.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Clay Twp rallies for high school ahead of South Bend consolidation vote