Des Moines Wants a New School. Now is Not the Time.

The Des Moines school district is planning to open a new middle school next year. It has been dubbed the Gateway Secondary School and will be housed at Central Campus. It will eventually serve 6^th through 10^th grade students and will offer the International Baccalaureate program. The fact the district is adding a new school at a time when it is letting teachers go from existing schools seems, well, odd.

The good news: There is space at Central Campus to house the school and the money the District is using to renovate the space comes from funds that cannot be used for teacher salaries. Further, the students who will attend the new school would require teachers even if they remained at their current neighborhood schools.

The bad news: There are costs associated with starting a new school. Administrative oversight, training for the International Baccalaureate program, and other additional costs that come with opening a new school such as desks, computers, and support staff are all being added to the expense side of the District ledger at a time when the District faces what some have called an unprecedented budget crunch.

One thing public school systems love to do is start new programs. School boards and administrators like to unveil shiny new programs and position themselves as innovators. It’s easier to get attention by building something new, than by fixing what is broken and maintaining what isn’t.

Des Moines Public Schools officials were as excited about opening the Downtown School in the 1990’s as they are about the new middle school being proposed this year. Placing elementary students in a less restrictive classroom environment in a building on the skywalk downtown close to working parents was touted as a winning innovation. It worked. The applause came. The location and the new learning style got the Des Moines’ Downtown School recognized nationally as a model to be followed.

Fast forward to today. The Downtown School has fallen out of favor, not because it didn’t work, but because Des Moines school leaders have something new sparking their interest. The Des Moines School District has invested thousands, maybe even millions into the International Baccalaureate program. (It is a little hard to place a firm price tag on the DMPS – IB program. A lot of money has gone into training educators, some positions have been kept or added to IB schools when similar positions don’t exist at non-IB schools and building/renovation dollars like the new middle school at Central Campus are not tagged specifically as an IB expense.) The Downtown School is being “relocated” out of the Keck City Center to Central Campus as a feeder program for the new IB middle school.

Kids will no longer be in walking distance of their working parents. Face it, the Downtown School experiment is over. Let the Central Campus K – 10 school and IB experiments begin!

In spite of the District’s horrific budget scenario, the Superintendent and School Board have had their hearts set on opening a new school for some time. Last fall, much time and effort was expended by school officials and others planning a new charter school. In late September and early October School Board members and the public were presented with details of a new school that was, dare I say it, an innovation. There were plans for community-based learning systems, team-based instruction, involving parents and families, and a ground-breaking entrepreneurial experiment with the Downtown Farmers Market. But, the federal seed dollars were denied and the charter school concept withered. Not to fear, those who want something new have the Gateway School and IB to crow about.

The International Baccalaureate program holds merit as one where students can achieve and deserves to be considered. Equally, a rethinking of our failing middle school concept is long overdue. But, what is needed in Des Moines more than building a new pilot program or opening a new school is a comprehensive plan for how we serve students at every school and at every learning level. Drafting such a plan is not as sexy as cutting a ribbon to a shimmering new or renovated facility, but it will have a larger, more meaningful impact in the long run.

Opening a new school during a budget crisis seems foolish, but even in the best of times we should not be bamboozled. We are failing too many kids in our middle schools. We shouldn’t spend valuable resources on new programs like a Gateway IB school for some kids to be housed in a new facility. Doing so generates news stories and may win a few administrators nice awards, but it does little to solve the problems the bulk of kids face in our schools. Let’s spend the scant resources we have on teachers and learning in the schools we have before we spend it opening something new that may fall out of favor when the next superintendent comes along.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.