Trumbull Closing Will Cause More Utilization Issues

• New boundaries are likely to lead to overcrowding at McCutcheon.
• New boundaries will not significantly impact underutilization at McPherson
• Overcrowding will force some students to attend Stockton/ Courtenay, leading to dangerous journeys to school.
• Two schools will be receiving Trumbull students, but will not receive assistance as they are not ‘receiving’ schools.

 

The Chicago Public School plan to close Trumbull will likely cause overcrowding at McCutcheon school, an analysis of CPS plans and demographic data by The Bulldog indicate.

The CPS plan calls for three schools to act as receiving schools for Trumbull students and a fourth to join in dividing the area served by Trumbull. Trumbull parents will be attending a Chicago Board of Education meeting this evening where it is expected they will object to the closure of Trumbull.

James Morgan, President of the Trumbull Local School Council told The Bulldog the school expects about 80 parents to attend the meeting. An effort by the LSC to organize a bus to the meeting was shot down by CPS, Morgan says.

CPS will not allow the LSC to use its funds to send parents to the meeting.

The Trumbull plan would send the 389 Trumbull students to three neighboring schools. However, an analysis of population and CPS data call into question how the community will be able to stay together and points to further issues with utilization in the future.

Using federal census data, The Bulldog created the new boundaries for the remaining four schools.

The data indicate McCutcheon, with only 47 seats till it is fully utilized, would serve between about 108 and 135 students. McPherson, with the most seats available, 406, would serve the fewest students, between about 75 and 86, according to the data.

CPS would likely assign students away from McCutcheon as a result of its overcrowding, probably to McPherson, defeating the idea of a neighborhood school and calling into question CPS attempts to keep the walk to school short and safe.

The situation is likely to continue beyond 2013-4. Census data indicate the new McCutcheon/ Trumbull population has at least 204 children under age 4. Because of the way data is presented, the number of children is underestimated by about 50 percent. This is due to how census track information is presented. That means there could be 400 Pre-K children in the McCutcheon/ Trumbull district.

The McCutcheon/ Trumbull share of population proposed by CPS is second only to Chappell/ Trumbull. However Chappell has 197 seats available. The data suggests Chappell will attract between 135 and 143 students from Trumbull.

The design of the new boundary is also unlikely to resolve the underutilization at McPherson. McPherson, which has 406 seats available, is likely to only attract between 75 and 86 students. That would leave McPherson underutilized and still under threat next year. It’s utilization rate would increase to only about 70-72 percent.

However McCutcheon, if it accepted all the students, would be overcrowded, with a utilization rate of between 114 and 121 percent. Due to closings at other Uptown schools, students would probably have a choice of attending McPherson or perhaps Stockton/ Courtenay.

Some assumptions need to be made about graduating students, but even with those assumptions, it appears the CPS plan will force between about 52 and 82 former Trumbull students to seek another school than McCutcheon if Trumbull is closed.

• Walking to McPherson would require the students to cross a minimum of four busy streets. The walk would be about ¾ mile.
• Railroad bridges, cemeteries, construction and other obstacles will force the students to either take Lawrence or Winnemac Avenues.
• Pierce school, which is not considered a ‘receiving’ school, will not be targeted with any programs for receiving schools. Nevertheless, it is likely to be taking in some of the Trumbull students.
• Pierce has room for 71 students to reach ‘full utilization’. The school would probably be overcrowded by CPS definition if it took all the students McCutcheon was unable to accommodate.
• Under the worst case scenario there could be about 15 students unable to find a place at Pierce or McCutcheon.
• Students would probably have to cross Foster along Glenwood, Lakewood or Magnolia. The walk is about 1/4 mile.

Stockton/ Courtenay, another school on the list to be merged or closed, is likely to have a student population of 756. Stockton/Courtenay has an ideal capacity of 1,050. In other words it has the room for the small number of Trumbull students who are unable to be accepted at the three designated schools and the fourth school sharing the revised boundary.

• For the handful of Trumbull students facing a lack of space at McCutcheon or Pierce the walk to school looks slightly less dangerous.
• A walk of up to one mile.
• There is one major street to cross, Lawrence.
• Parts of Uptown, including some streets between Clark and Truman College, have experienced significant gang violence.
• St Boniface cemetery will force the children to either walk on Clark or Magnolia.

That means CPS, which has said only three schools will be impacted, is actually likely to see six schools impacted by the Trumbull proposal. Two of the schools will be struggling to accommodate a merger. The troubles experienced by the Trumbull students who find themselves at Stockton/ Courtenay is not likely to rank high at a school that doesn’t even have a principal at the moment.

Tags: census data, Chappell, Chicago Board of Education, Chicago Public Schools, closing, Courtenay, education, gangs, Illinois, James Morgan, Local School Council, McCutcheon, McPherson, Pierce, primary, school boundaries, Stockton, Trumbull, underutilization, violence, walk to school

This entry was posted on April 26, 2013 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Featured, Neighborhood News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.