The North End is saturated with magnet options, yet the Nashville Civic Design Center recommends another one

Except for one minor detail, this proposal by the Nashville Civic Design Center sounds sublime:

The Nashville Civic Design Center proposes a new magnet elementary school in the Lafayette neighborhood and a magnet arts school in the Sulphur Dell neighborhood. The schools would share an axial relationship, as their sites are flanked by 4th and 5th Avenues (Avenue of the Arts). These locations would provide the schools with close proximity to downtown art and science museums, as well as many other educational institutions throughout the city. Additionally, the locational advantage of the proposed schools addresses goals from the city’s Schools Strategic Plan, namely “to market and promote relevant and engaging extracurricular activities for students risk of dropout”, and to “select and use technology in developmentally appropriate ways to promote active learning, improve student engagement and individualize instruction.”

North Nashville Community Plan: Salemtown Scenarios, Part I

For weeks now I've had questions from Metro Planning sitting on my desk regarding community plans for Salemtown for the next 10 years. I got them because Planning scheduled the Salemtown-Germantown community meeting during the week of Metro Schools spring break, when we were on spring break. I attended the meeting before that for the Jones-Buena Vista neighborhoods, since I am a Jones Paideia parent. However, I was told that I should either answer the questions for Salemtown either by e-mail for Planning or attend a later meeting with MetroCenter "neighborhoods." It made no sense to me that I could have input at the MetroCenter meetings, but not with the Jones-Buena Vista meeting, which was not exactly well attended, so I did not attend the MetroCenter meeting even as I played by the rules at the earlier meeting.

All that is to say, I'm going to give my feedback to Planning's questions via e-mail and I'm going to publish them on this blog. I've already given some of my input at the Jones-Buena Vista meeting: sound barriers for the I-65 corridor that cuts through Jones & Salemtown, a spoke-like greenway that connect the Jones neighborhood to the Looby community center and beyond that through MetroCenter to the Cumberland Levee greenway, making Buchanan Street a more sustainable business area. But I have many more ideas for Salemtown. So, here we go.

Where are the existing parks in your community? Do the existing parks in the neighborhood meet your needs? If yes, how do they meet your needs? If they do not meet your needs how can it be improved to do so? Open space does not always have to be a park. If other open space exists or is needed what type of open space would it be and where would it be located?

The existing parks in Salemtown include Morgan Park and the Downtown Connector Greenway. The greenway system meets the pedestrian and biking needs of the community well. It is prone to some abuse by vehicular traffic as I have seen cars parked on walking paths at Morgan Park for athletic practices and on the Cumberland River for people who fish. Also, trash is dumped at some spots along the river, which calls for both surveillance and receptacles. Finally, there were some young trees planted along the connector during the drought a couple of years ago that were not watered in a way to match the harsh weather. They have been taken out and should be replaced.

The changes at Morgan Park over the past few years seem to minimize children's participation. Greenway development, a new fountain, and landscaping attract adults, but the baseball diamond that existed for generations was removed a couple of years ago and the field remains undedicated to anything but random use. It took us years to get a dangerous old playground demolished and a new one put in, but the new one is small. The playground could use a few more features dedicated to children of various ages.

Another greenspace that needs landscaping work is the strip that runs in front of Metro Water Services on 3rd Avenue, North from I-65 on the north to the Magdeburg greenway spur on the south. Salemtown residents have an ugly view of the Central Wastewater plant. Either the plant needs to do more to conceal its sewage tanks or someone should put up screening trees and shrubs along the green 3rd Avenue strip.

The 2002 neighborhood plan called for this green strip to be a civic open space. To become civic, it is going to need sidewalks or paths, landscape architecture, seating, and an attractive blocking wall instead of a chain link fence running the length of the plant's edge. These are some of the basic ingredients that make small public spaces attractive. Other possibilities include water features (which could recall the plant-obstructed Cumberland River) and a possible Riverfront Redevelopment Plan Transit stop (perhaps a trolley driveway). Research indicates that elements like these make urban spaces social. 3rd Avenue has been the neglected part of Salemtown. Converting the MWS strip could turn that around.

Finally, another green strip that needs some attention is that abutting Coffee Street and I-65 from 3rd Avenue to Rosa Parks Boulevard. A previous neighborhood plan called for pocket parks in that area. Regardless of whether that happens, some sort of sound-blocking screen should be constructed between Salemtown and the interstate highway. West Nashville residents enjoy a sound wall along I-440, while chain link fences seem to be TDOT's answer for North Nashville. Either a sound wall or a screen of large trees and shrubs should be installed to block Salemtown from noise and sight pollution.

Metro Nashville needs to spend at least as much energy and effort on the North Nashville parks and greenspaces as it does on the public jewels in West Nashville and the East End.

News 2's Christine Maddela Focuses on "Left Behind" Section of District 19

What makes Maddela's story a worthy one is that it focuses at the neighborhood level to show that in the tug-of-status-war between Nashville's east and west communities and the Mayor's Office's preoccupation with Downtown development, North Nashville communities are left behind.

The only thing I would caution is not to confuse a relatively small area of District 19 (where it overlaps with the Metro Police North Precinct) with all of District 19. Here is a map with the overlap highlighted in purple:



I'm not trying to minimize the neglect and blight of parts of District 19, but I am underscoring the context of the problem as a neighborhood (Jones/Buena Vista and Elizabeth Park area) one that requires more focused Metro attention (including the executive and legislative branches beyond the police) and less a general treatment of the councilmanic district.

Speaking of the councilmanic district, I find it curious that CM Erica Gilmore did not comment on Maddela's story given its framing of her district.

Tennessean Article on "Mean Streets" Focuses on Cheatham Place and Points West

Tim Gianni describes how $228,000 in federal law enforcement funding is paying the overtime for Metro Police officers who work the "Safer Streets Program." The article is gives a good overview of how the community affairs officers and special investigation teams work together in higher crime neighborhoods. Gianni focuses on the neighborhoods from Cheatham Place (9th Av N) to 23rd Av N, which include Historic Buena Vista, Jones Buena Vista, Osage, and Fisk.

One More Reason Why the Mayor Gets More Respect than the Metro Council

On the one hand, look around the community at the projects that have Mayor Purcell's fingerprints on them. He seems to direct tax dollars at community problems so to have the broadest impact, even when they are unsexy ones like the project that Metro just started in the Jones Buena Vista neighborhood to replace crumbling sidewalks along 9th Avenue North (pictured to the left). We can rest assured that there is public oversight of these projects.

On the other hand, look at the rare chance that our council members have been given to manage and to spend our tax dollars. They've given that money to the Nashville Songwriters Association and to fund upgrades to a private swimming pool. There are no guarantees of public oversight of these projects, outside of financial reports to Metro, or of measurable proof of broader public benefit.

I would say that the council members have more than earned their low reputation and that they lose any credibility when it comes to questioning the Mayor on his budgets. They cannot even manage their own money so that community-wide problems are effectively addressed. What makes them think they are entitled to question anyone else?

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

During last fall's school board hubbub about the possibility of closing schools to address budget problems, yours truly was vigorous in his support for the fight to keep one of those schools, Jones Paideia, open. My rationale in a nutshell (the expanded version can be found here) was that Jones Paideia was both an historic neighborhood landmark and a center of family activity on the North End. Hence, losing the school would have been a blow to our collective health.

The events ended happily as Jones Paideia was saved from closure, and now if you take a look at their underrenovation campus, you'll see some attractive new additions going on in back where temporaries once stood. But, of course, the budget problems did not get resolved with school closures and now the chickens are coming home to roost for other constituencies touched by our public school system.

My family is in one of those consitutencies. Our toddler will be 3-years-old next year, qualifying her for one of the public school Montessori programs. Moreover, we live in close proximity to Hull-Jackson Montessori Magnet. Since magnet schools are required to take a certain percentage of their students proximate to their campuses, odds at possibly getting her into Hull-Jackson are better than most. However, now the school board is considering cutting programs for 3-year-olds in order to save money, and so my support of Jones Paideia may have helped bring about the closure of a quality program in which our toddler might have enrolled in 2007.

I don't regret my support of Jones Paideia, because the school makes the North End a better place to live. I just hope that all of those Jones Paideia parents and teachers who don't live in the North End will remember how important saving their school was to them and that they will be supportive of the rest of us who continue to face the possibility that our public school services (and in some cases jobs) will probably be cut in Jones's stead. I don't believe that Montessori programs for 3-year-olds are any less important than the schools that were saved from the chopping block last fall. In fact, from my family's own perspective, they are more important.

School Board Votes 7-2 Tonight To Resume Jones School Renovations As Planned

Jones School should reopen for classes in their renovated building at 9th Ave. and Garfield by January 2007.

Kudos to Channel 2 News for covering this story prominently in both their 6:00 and 10:00 time slots. Shame on the other two local stations for focusing on what is happening in Iraqi voting to the exclusion of this School Board vote and its significance for our Nashville community.

Jones School May Be Right Back On The Chopping Block

Just as we were about to stop pinching ourselves to make sure we were not dreaming that Jones School had actually been spared School Board closure, so comes news that suggests that maybe it was too good to be true.

I received an e-mail a few hours ago from the Jones Paideia PTO President, Helen Koudelkova, saying that, while Dr. Pedro Garcia and the school district were going to go ahead with renovations (already under contract), Board Members Kathy Nevill, Marsha Warden, and Pam Garrett disagreed, saying that the renovation money should go to other district projects. The question of whether to continue to spend money on renovations has been scheduled to come before the School Board on Tuesday, December 13.

According to Helen, some Board members believe it could take as much as a year to decide what to do with renovation funds. In the meantime, she tells me, Jones School would not be ready for the 2006 year and Jones Paideia would be left "homeless." She called Tuesday's meeting "D-day" for Jones and said that a Board vote against renovation would be a de facto decision to close or merge Jones Paideia, which the School Board voted just last week not to do.

Or did they? Cue Yogi Berra: "It's déjà vu all over again."

Only The Beginning: Where We Should Go Now

While parents and community leaders may be breathing a sigh of relief that the plan to close schools was dropped, the need of a strategy to enhance neighborhood influence over the planning process is still very much with us. There may be a tendency to relax at this point, but the school district's course change was an important victory specifically for Jones School and for the North End. We should not waste the momentum that provides a basis for some important next steps.

I have some recommendations:

1. Explore the possibility of securing a historic zoning overlay for the Jones School property. Historic overlay might insure that even if it is sold some day to a private investor, the building would have to be preserved. It seems to me that there would be a lot less resistance to such an overlay now (that we dodged a bullet) than later (when the demand for properties is even higher), when and if we face the crisis of closing again.
2. Nurture a mutually beneficial relationship between the Jones Paideia PTO and neighborhood associations. There is strength in numbers and there are resources that can be shared as different interest groups find common ground. It would be a waste if the only coalition that emerged from this crisis was a short-term reaction to a single School Board decision. Hopefully, we are all in this for the long-term.
3. Use the occasion to develop a working relationship with our School Board representative. Many of us work under the belief that MNPS operates free and clear of our communities. We can change either the truth or the perception of MNPS autonomy. The outcry that arose over the proposed school closings and the consequent course change should be underscored in the future to keep our representatives more accountable to us. Part of the challenge is overcoming the idea that only parents of school-age children have an investment in MNPS. That is totally mistaken. The prospect of beautiful old Jones School shutting down just as the North End is taking off--along and the economic and social impact of closure--suggests that our School Board's decisions affect all of us; not just the children and not just their parents. Schools can be neighborhood stabilizers that vastly improve community quality-of-life for everyone.

Let's not lull ourselves into wasting the momentum we have.

BREAKING: Jones Paideia School Saved! Garcia Backs Off Plan To Close Schools, Updated

The Tennessean is reporting this evening that Dr. Pedro Garcia is recommending that no schools be closed for 2006-2007. In an e-mail to Board Members, Dr. Garcia said the pain expressed by "students, parents, and community members" is a reason for changing his plan in order to allow "ample time for the issues to be thoroughly studied."

12/08/2005, 10:10 Update: The School Board passed the motion to keep all schools in the district open for the 2006-2007 year. Pedro Garcia told the news stations tonight that closures were not just causing parents and communities pain, but also causing unnecessary divisions. Vice Chair Kathy Nevill told News 2 that possible closure was causing too much "angst" among parents and among communities.

I am grateful that the School Board listened to local neighborhood leaders like those here in Salemtown and Germantown. I am also proud that Salemtown Neighbors played some part in focusing community "angst" into positive results. Parents at tonight's School Board meeting told the Board during the public presentation portion that they pledged to work with the School Board through the budget shortage. Looks like unity to me.

Kay Brooks has Dr. Garcia's complete statement on the change of direction e-mailed to the School Board earlier today.

Chair Adds Jones Paideia Question To Tonight's School Board Meeting Agenda For Discussion

School Board Chair Pam Garrett has added the matter of the proposed closing of Jones Paideia, according to the Jones PTO President, to tonight's School Board meeting agenda for consideration. The meeting will be held in the Metro Nashville Public Schools Board Room at 2601 Bransford Ave. Ms. Garrett has moved up the meeting start time to 5:00 p.m.; sign-ups for speakers is at 4:30 p.m.

Five Of Nine School Board Members Show Up To Meet With Jones Paideia PTO On Planned School Closing

Jones Paideia PTO President, Helen Koudelkova, told me that they met with five of the nine School Board members last night to discuss their "interest and concerns" about plans to close the school. Ms. Koudelkova characterized the meeting as "productive."

She also fowarded me the final petition against closing the Jones School, which is being sent to Dr. Pedro Garcia. It included 378 signatures. After reading the final draft, I have to admit that I am even more confused as to the reasoning behind the closing plans.

Here are a few details that might daze and discombobulate you as well:

• Dr. Garcia's rationale for closing specific schools is that they are small; however, Jones is not small by the district's own standards. According to the petition:
• Jones Paideia is neither a “small” nor undercapacity school by any of the definitions so far set out by the School Board .... the district was asked to look at schools under 300 for possible closure. Our current enrollment of 326 not only puts us above that mark but makes us larger than at least 20 other elementary schools in the district. It is also important to note that this year we were relocated out of the center of town to the Brick Church campus in northwestern Davidson County in order for our building to be renovated. This move resulted in the loss of a number of previous and prospective students, particularly from the south side of town, due to the significant increase in distance and travel time for many of them.
• Dr. Garcia's rationale on closings is to save money without sacrificing quality; yet, the logic on Jones seems to be to try to fix something that ain't broke. According to the petition:
• Jones Paideia is a highly successful program—we consistently have some of the best performance scores in the district and have met or exceeded every benchmark. For example, our 2005 TCAP scores showed 93.5% proficiency in Reading/Language and 89.4% in Math. We have a well-established program that is achieving excellent results and our kids are happy and thriving. In fact, our school was recently invited by the National Paideia Center to become a “demonstration school” for people around the country to come and see how we do things. However, the proposed merger with John Early [Middle Paideia] would, in effect, involve a complete restructuring of our program.
• Dr. Garcia's rationale includes the motivation to do what is in the best interests of our children's development; yet, merging Jones and Early stand to undermine student development. According to the petition:
• "Researchers have found that large schools have a more negative impact on minority and low-[socio-economic-status] students than on students in general,” making school size an equity issue. (It is also worth noting in this regard that, in its previously referenced report on K-8 school configuration, the Peoria, IL School Board cites exactly these considerations in recommending the design of K-8 schools of no more than 500 students.) [Jones Paideia] is currently more than 90% African American and 50% free and reduced lunch, and John Early is, according to the Tennessee Dept. of Education 2005 Report Card, more than 95% African American and nearly 70% economically disadvantaged. That is, the populations our two schools serve are precisely those which would be most adversely affected by merging the two programs to create a large school of more than 600 students.
• Dr. Garcia rationalizes closings to save money; yet, closing Jones seems to represent either a net loss or the bad management of a good investment. According to the petition:
• Per Metro Schools Planning and Construction, significant capital expenditures of nearly $500,000 have gone into necessary upgrades and improvements to the Jones building in just the last several years, including $418,663 for an ADA compliance project completed in August of 2003, $7,156 for asbestos abatement, and $62,946 to replace the roof this past summer of 2005. In addition, well over $200,000 more has been spent within the past year in connection with the planned renovation of our building: $138,217 for architect design fees, $19,951 for bidding expenditures, and $64,000 to move portables from the property in order for renovations to begin. And this figure does not include the cost of moving the contents of the school to Brick Church, the stipends paid to teachers for the additional work of first dismantling and then setting up their classrooms, or contractor fees for mobilization and work done in the Jones building so far. All told, nearly $1 million dollars has been invested in the Jones building over the last three years.
• The Executive Director of Facilities & Operations [acknowledges] that some modifications to the John Early building would be necessary in order to move our elementary program there. If these modifications are to be extensive enough to make the space genuinely adequate for our needs, they will require a substantial capital investment .... [W]e ... question the wisdom of investing large sums of money to, in effect, renovate a building that is only a few years old versus going ahead with the renovations to our existing building, which have already been started and would result in our having more appropriate facilities designed to elementary specifications.

If you can defy perplexity and discern the merits of our school district's rationale for closing Jones Paideia, well, by all means, explain it to those of us for whom the logic fails. Otherwise, we might be prone to see the plans as a component of Dr. Garcia's rumored running feud with Mayor Purcell, whose daughter reportedly attended Jones Paideia at one time.

Salemtown Neighbors Contests The School Board's Plans To Torpedo Jones School

Salemtown Neighbors unanimously voted Monday night to oppose the Metro School Board and Pedro Garcia's plans to eighty-six Jones Paideia School. That opposition will be expressed in the form of a letter to the School Board and to other elected officials. Salemtown Neighbors joined Historic Germantown Nashville Inc. in calling for renovations on the historic Jones School building to commence once again in the name of North End quality-of-life.

Jones PTO President, Helen Koudelkova, addressed the Salemtown association's membership, and she got more signatures afterwards for the petition she started in order to save Jones Paideia. She currently has almost 300 signatures.

Will Metro Nashville Become Just Another "Lousy Absentee Landlord" In The North End?

Kay Brooks suggests that the prospects of the conditions of Jones School and the surrounding neighborhoods may look ominous and bleak if Metro's appalling track record after the closure of Inglewood's Litton High School is any indication.

The frightening and ironic prospect of empty, unused public buildings and land allowed to rot in an otherwise vital neighborhood ought to startle even the most complacent or apathetic neighbor to some sort of response to school administrators. If nothing else it ought to prick the instinct to protect their quality of life. Sitting on one's hands is destructive.

If neighborhoods are going to sustain their long-term viability, they require generational diversity; that is, they require families with children. And families with children are attracted to neighborhoods with operational public services and strong public institutions such as schools. That is simply the natural order of neighborhoods. If the North End loses the fight to keep Jones School open it will sacrifice part of its long-term viability as a place to live.

While selling Jones School to a private developer may be preferable to letting it decay away to a shell and become a convention of unsavory elements, it is not the best option. Private buyers desire some decay in order to drive the asking price down; so, they would not have the common good of the neighborhood at heart. But allowing a sale also lets Metro government off the hook. That is unacceptable. In our democracy, government usually fails to serve when its constituents fail to demand quality without ceasing. Failing is not an option.

The only viable option is keep Metro from becoming an absentee landlord by demanding that Jones School remain an open neighborhood center. God knows, we already have enough pockets of blight where "lousy absentee landlords" do not hold up their end of the common-good bargain. If the battle to keep Jones Paideia is lost, then our neighborhoods need to hold the School Board's feet to the fire to develop neighborhood-friendly, family-focused plans for the building.

Possible Jones Closing At Last Hits The Mainstream Media

Tennessean reporter Nancy Deville published a story today on the growing controversy over the possible Jones Paideia School closing. She also plans on doing a follow-up story later on the community response to the closing.

The timeline to save Jones Paideia is tight: Jones PTO President, Helen Koudelkova, told me that the School Board expects to have school closing decisions made by December 15. However, since Magnet School applications for next year have to be turned in by December 9, the public perception that the Jones closing will be inevitable may cause prospective parents to pursue other possibilities. A downturn in applications would sustain the School Board's inclination to close Jones, which has already been reamed of some facilities.

In related news, President Koudelkova also told me that most of the Jones PTO leaders and parents could not attend the last special School Board public-feedback meeting on November 17 at Pearl-Cohn because the district administration required the magnet schools to host a "Family Night" on the 17th. "Family Night" was originally scheduled for November 15th, but administrators mandated that it be bumped two days. The President cited this as an example of how the MNPS district's policies work at cross purposes.

Opposing Pedro: Jones Paideia PTO President Takes Her Mission To Save The Historic North End School From "Dereliction" To Neighborhood Leaders

You may have read my previous ode to preserving historic neighborhood schools like Jones Paideia, rather than shoving them beneath the wheels of the budget-crunch freight train. As I told you, the destruction done by closing these schools also rips like shrapnel across the fabric of urban neighborhoods. The closure of neighborhood schools represents the closure of neighborhood centers and the closure of the familial dimensions of those neighborhoods.

Then again, that was a long post and you may not have read it. However, the Jones Paideia PTO President, Helen Koudelkova, did read it and contacted me to say that she is spear-heading a group of concerned citizens and neighborhood leaders from the North End in order to "fight this closure with everything we've got."

Ms. Koudelkova also tells Enclave that the contractors working to renovate the school building for next fall were a-week-and-a-half into the renovations when they got the order to stop on November 9th. She reports:

In that time, they removed the steam heat system and all the A/C units. What this means is that, in its current condition, the building could not be reused for any other purpose without the school district making a substantial capital investment to replace those systems (approximately $400,000 according to a mechanical engineer I consulted), which - in the current fiscal climate - is highly unlikely. My fear is that if the renovations do not go forward the building will sit abandoned and quickly become derelict.

That's exactly my fear, too. It's right there in your Newtonian laws: bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. If they close the Jones School building to education, chances are good that it will never open again to education, or if it does, it will be used as just another urban container for social service projects that should be farmed out to suburban communities. Bodies in motion tend to stay in that motion: once they start tearing out its facilities, momentum to tear the whole thing down is a breeze.

Private economic development is exploding around the North End now, and we need our public centers, like schools, libraries, and parks to balance development and keep it in check. The local neighborhoods like Salemtown, Jones-Buena Vista, Germantown, and Hope Gardens need a functioning, operational, and thriving Jones Paideia to stay right where it is as an anchor holding us steady even as the uncertain currents of development attempt to toss us here and there.

Helen Koudelkova will be speaking about saving Jones Paideia from its own School Board at the Salemtown Neighbors neighborhood association meeting on Monday, November 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Morgan Park Community Center (Hume St. and 5th Ave., North).

One Of Our Neighborhood Schools A Target For Closure, Updated

Unlike suburban public schools, schools close to the center city often act as one of a few anchors for the walkable neighborhood. When they are good, they are one of the few institutions that actually attract families, rather than upwardly mobile singles or older adults, back to urban neighborhoods, because families with kids require good schools. That is why predominantly suburban resistance to raising taxes for funding schools among other urban services is a direct attack not only on education, but it is also an assault through neglect on the fabric of urban neighborhoods, which lose their centers and which have a harder time attracting the families that would diversify their populations.

While I did not support the last sales tax referendum to fund education, I do believe in both the need for progressive revenue-raising for city schools and reform of the system to stop waste and create cost-effective educational measures. When educational reform gets overemphasized to the exclusion of the need for more money to pay for rising costs, increasing student populations, technology upgrades, and court-mandated revenue sharing with rural schools, I interpret mutual exclusion as a war declared on urbanism as a way of life. I interpret it as animosity toward a walkable and diverse neighborhood where gasoline expenses are minimal. I consider it protection of the monopoly that suburban areas have over attracting families.

I wondered this past weekend whether one of the casualties of the Metro School Board's tough decisions would be a North End institution: Buena Vista School. Reading the cut list, I was relieved to see that Buena Vista seems to have survived so far. However, I was horrified to see that another historic North End institution, Jones Paideia Magnet School, is slated to be closed and their students moved several blocks deeper into Metro Center to the John Early Paideia School. While only a few blocks over, Jones Paideia is changing neighborhoods: from Jones-Buena Vista to Historic Buena Vista. So, one of the centers of the Jones-Buena Vista neighborhood, currently closed for renovation, is a casualty to the lack of political will to pay for services; if Pedro Garcia has his way, it will not re-open next fall.

I know we don't live in a perfect world and Garcia and the School Board are left with tough decisions, mainly due to the Metro Council and the Mayor's gamble on a sales tax increase. But I hope that North End residents fight to keep Jones Paideia open or at least to get promises that it will open again some day when our budget is more progressive.

It would be totally wrong to either tear the school down or to sell it to private developers or to put more public assistance offices or Head Start facilities in it to go with those already disproportionately occupying so many of our city neighborhoods.

Jones School is one of the architectural jewels of the North End. The Paideia program, based on teaching children classic Socratic critical thinking, provides an great alternative to traditional public school methods. But most importantly, this is one of our centers that gives neighbors, black and white together, a sense of place, turning them toward their own neighborhood.

11/10/2005, 10:30 p.m. Update: The 10:00 p.m. news programs on each of the local stations reported tonight about "frustrated" parents speaking out at tonight's School Board Public Meeting at Maplewood High School. Channel 4 News reported that one of the most controversial proposed closings was Jones Paideia. They reported that part of the problem was the perception that there were discipline problems at John Early Paideia that would be amplified by increasing the school's population. News 2 presented comments against closing by a Rose Park Student. NewsChannel 5 said very little in detail about the meeting, and merely quoted a principal who supported the closings (typical!).

Gothic School Graces Jones-Buena Vista Neighborhood