RCSD board approves school closure, reorganization plan

The Rochester school board Thursday voted 5-2 to enact the district's most momentous realignment in a generation, adding junior high schools across the city and affecting fully half the schools in the district.

Superintendent Carmine Peluso unveiled the plan last month after more than a year of preparation. purpose is to realign the district's physical footprint and employment rolls with its declining enrollment.

"This is difficult. This is not something we take lightly," Board President Cynthia Elliott said. "But we see the enrollment numbers and as district leaders we have to make some tough decisions."

James Patterson and Camille Simmons voted against the plan — with reluctance, they said. They asked for more time to think of other ways to achieve the district's goals, including the grade-level realignment, without such drastic action.

"The district has a history of reconfiguring, closing, reopening, renaming, you name it," Simmons said. "One thing that remains consistent is that our student academic outcomes seem not to change very much. So many people in our community want to know: What’s the plan?"

The plan closes 11 schools:

• Clara Barton School 2 on Reynolds Street in the southwest

• Dr. Walter Cooper Academy School 10 on Congress Avenue in the southwest

• Adlai Stevenson School 29 on Kirkland Road in the southwest

• Andrew Townson School 39 on Midland Avenue in the northeast

• RISE Community School 106 on West Ridge Road in the northwest

• Wilson Foundation Academy on Genesee Street in the southwest

• Alice Holloway Young School of Excellence on Adams Street

• Monroe Lower School on Monroe Avenue

• Franklin lower and upper schools on Hudson Avenue

• Northeast College Preparatory High School at the Charlotte campus

In their place, five new schools will open:

• A middle school at the former Madison High School building on Genesee Street

• A middle school at the Freddie Thomas campus on Scio Street

• A middle school at the Charlotte campus

• A middle school at the Jefferson campus

• A high school at the Franklin campus

Several other schools will move buildings, while the district's many K-8 schools will be trimmed to K-6.

Before the vote, Peluso announced some small changes. School 2 students will be allowed to stay in their current building when it becomes School 25, and all students in the School 29 autism spectrum disorder program will remain together elsewhere.

There will be a special early placement process for students from those closing schools as well as current sixth-graders at K-8 schools losing their middle school grades. Layoffs are expected to be minimal given the many current unfilled positions.

The administration's next task will be creating the five new schools in less than a year.

Students, families and staff from several of the affected schools, especially Walter Cooper Academy, protested over the last month.

Among them were dozens of students and faculty at Thursday's board meeting. Many came from Clara Barton School 2, one of the schools that will close. They sang their school anthem as board members filed in and chanted "delay the vote," pleading for more time.

Kimberly Douglass, the mother of a first-grader, described terrible experiences her son had in prekindergarten and kindergarten at other schools before arriving at School 2.

"I’ve never met such an amazing team," she said. "The staff at School 2 are not just there for a paycheck; they’re dedicated to helping these kids with whatever they can."

But school board members knew when they hired Peluso in 2022 that passing a district realignment plan would be his first and most important responsibility. They signaled earlier they would support him, and when the moment arrived they did so.

"I am personally responsible for this whole thing being kicked down the road," said board member Ricardo Adams, who before joining the board was a prominent parent activist. "We’ve delayed this stuff to the point where we’ve got some numbers that are really bad. We need to reduce the size."

Full coverage of the school realignment plan

Peluso lays out big changes in RCSD realignment proposal

'It's a tough one': Walter Cooper, Alice Young would see namesake schools close

Students, families react to proposed school closures

Housing or charters? Competition for vacated RCSD buildings will be intense

Rochester's Walter Cooper Academy fights uphill battle against closure

Graveyard of reform: Many RCSD proposed to close were once held as exemplars

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester NY school reorganization, closure: Board approves plan