Students at four Amphitheater elementary schools are spending their last semester on their home campuses. Next school year, they’ll be integrated into six different schools due to what the district says are severe enrollment shortfalls. Amphi cites the county’s falling birth rate and a rise in use of state-issued private school vouchers as the main contributors to the district’s approximately [50% enrollment]( Superintendent's Recommendation for School Closures and Consolidation) relative to building capacity.
At a governing board meeting Tuesday night, the board voted unanimously to approve Amphi superintendent Todd Jaeger’s recommendation to close Copper Creek, Holaway, Donaldson and Nash elementary schools.
“This is not a reflection of the quality of education at these sites, but a necessary response to the shifting landscape of our community,” Jaeger said.
For several months, parents — most vocally from Copper Creek Elementary School — have been fighting the closures, alleging Jaeger and the governing board have failed to include them sufficiently in closure discussions.
At Tuesday’s meeting, many heads in the crowd were shaking as the board justified the closures. Some audience members laughed during the superintendent and board’s remarks. Two parents were escorted out of the auditorium after the vote was called for speaking out of turn.
“Whether the fact that this decision is in their lap was their fault or not, they haven’t gone about reaching a solution in a way that makes me feel like I’m a constituent with a voice that matters,” she said.
Ahead of three community meetings the district held in November, it opened a feedback form encouraging parents and staff to ask questions or present ideas. Despite that effort, Morris and others are not convinced Amphi has the community’s best interests at heart.
They say the announcement was sprung on them too quickly, without ample time for parents, staff and administration to build a solution together. Several have also cited what they say are gaps in the district’s enrollment numbers.
Superintendent Jaeger, board president Susan Zibrat and vice president Deanna Day did not respond to AZPM’s request for comment.
“We haven't had a chance to be involved in the process, to use our voices, to advocate for ourselves and it really just feels like the district made up its mind a long time ago about what they were going to do,” Morris said.
Lorella Ritzel, a behavior intervention monitor at Copper Creek, asked the board for more collaboration and creative thinking in generating a solution to enrollment shortfalls.
“There are so many different ways that we haven’t been heard and it is so disappointing. And as an employee who’s worried about my job, I’m not convinced that all of the things that you promised us as an employee are actually going to be held up.”
Some say Special Education students will be adversely impacted##
According to Amphitheater Public Schools data, almost 30% of Copper Creek’s student population is in a Special Education program. In an email to AZPM, district spokesperson Michelle Valenzuela said that includes 27 students in inclusion and resource programming, 18 in cross-categorical programs and 22 in preschool.
Those special programs from Copper Creek are set to move over to Painted Sky next year, even though general education students will be integrated into Harelson and Wilson. At Painted Sky, there are currently no cross-categorical classrooms, which some parents say will cause a rocky transition.
Amanda Griffin’s child attends Holaway as part of the Special Education program where students also face being separated from their general education classmates in the closure transition.
“Please do not make the most vulnerable children carry the heaviest burden of this transition. Let them move forward with the classmates that they know, the friends they trust and the community that has helped them grow,” she said to the board Tuesday night.
Receiving scoffs from the audience, superintendent Jaeger said some parents misunderstand the legislature that dictates the district’s handling of Special Education programs in the transition. He said the separation of those students and their general education peers is a result of what makes most sense geographically.
“The provisions of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Act) actually specify that students who are disabled and receive services, under the law, are supposed to be educated at the facility that is closest to their home,” he said.
At a Dec. 9 school board meeting, Gina David said the transition alone for the 60-some students will be disruptive.
“As a special education teacher, I struggle to understand how this decision was made, knowing how difficult change can be for this particular category of students.”
Sharron Lovemore’s daughter spent nine years in Copper Creek Special Education programs.
“They would be taking these kids out of Copper Creek and putting them into a completely different school where they’re unfamiliar with the teachers, the staff, the routine, the physical location and a completely different set of general education peers,” she said.
What makes the change even worse, Lovemore said, is that Copper Creek’s cross-categorical students will be split from their general education peers, whom they share classes with and have built relationships with.
The skills her daughter has learned “have given her the confidence to participate in extracurricular activities outside of school, where she's able to use those skills and interact with all different types of people,” Lovemore said.
Though the night ended on a sour note, parents and staff gathered outside the auditorium to discuss the uncertain future, a feeling of collective action still ringing.
