Friday, August 08, 2008
By Wendy Gragg
Tribune-Herald staff writer
There will be no first day of school for G.L. Wiley Middle School this year.
Just two weeks shy of the start of the school year, Aug. 25, the Waco Independent School District board of trustees voted Thursday night to close the school and disperse the Wiley students to Brazos and Cesar Chavez middle schools and G.W. Carver Academy.
Photos: East Waco residents speak out at packed board meeting
Video: Watch what the community had to say
The board heard nearly four hours of pleas to keep the school open before deliberating and finally voting 4-3 in favor of a proposal to close the school. Trustees Sammy Smith, Debbie Luce, Allen Sykes and Pat Atkins voted for closure; trustees Larry Perez, Alex Williams and David Schleicher voted against.
East Waco came to the meeting as a collective voice, with more than 20 people — Wiley students, parents, teachers and community members — speaking to the board on the school’s behalf. Roughly 200 people filled the board room seats and lined the back wall. But by the time the closure vote was taken, much of the crowd was already filing out the doors.
Earlier in the meeting, Perez made a motion in favor of the one proposal considered that would have kept the school open. Trustees voted the motion down 5-2.
“You’re disrupting all these students’ lives,” wailed former school board member Coque Gibson after the vote to keep Wiley open failed. “Two weeks and you’ve been thinking about this for years! Why are you doing this?”
Outside the WISD administration building, Wiley supporters huddled in small groups, not talking about the defeat, but rather, declaring that the fight was not over.
Wiley’s fifth consecutive “unacceptable” rating from the state and its low enrollment are part of the reason the East Waco school found itself on the chopping block Thursday night. Trustees who voted for closure voiced a concern that, due to low enrollment, Wiley students are not being given all the opportunities that students at the other middle schools are getting.
Creating opportunities
“This has never been about test scores for me,” trustee Pat Atkins said. “What we’re trying to do is give students the same opportunities and do it in an equitable manner.”
The school, which has made significant gains in state test scores over the last five years, was issued a year reprieve by the commissioner of education Robert Scott before the state would have turned the school over to alternative management. East Waco leaders have stressed the school’s improvement in recent years and also the commissioner’s own faith in the school’s ability to shake its “unacceptable” rating as reasons to keep the school open.
But facts and figures were only a small part of the public comment at Thursday night’s meeting. Emotion and a sense of injustice seemed to draw speakers to the microphone to testify for Wiley.
“We try so hard, but the district does nothing but knock us down,” said Wiley student Darious Wright. “The area we live in is bad enough, now we have to fight for our school?”
Parents spoke about the logistics of having to shuffle their children off to a school that’s not in their neighborhood. Others spoke about education and giving black children a chance to succeed.
Grunts of agreement and nodding heads rose from the crowd, as did standing ovations for passionate Wiley pleas.
In other business ...
The Waco Independent School District school board had a busy night Thursday. In addition to the vote closing G.L. Wiley Middle School, trustees also:
* Approved construction of a new elementary school to be built at the site of the current J.H. Hines Elementary campus in East Waco. The new elementary would involve the consolidation of two current campuses, Doris Miller and J.H. Hines elementaries. Funding for the construction comes from a massive bond issue package approved by voters earlier this year.
* Approved an average 4 percent pay raise across the board for teachers. The increases are weighted toward teachers with several years experience.
* Discussed the budget and set an Aug. 21 meeting date for a hearing and vote for the upcoming school year’s budget.
* Requested administrative staff compile a report about plans for what to do with money that had been allotted for G.L. Wiley.
* Announced a new principal for University Middle School and assistant principals for G.W. Carver Academy and Bell’s Hill Elementary.
Tense relations
Discussion between board members was no less intense. Trustee Alex Williams, who represents East Waco, squared off against some of his fellow trustees and the school district administrative team, asking the same questions repeatedly, not satisfied with the answers he was given.
“They simply don’t understand the pride of the black community,” Williams told the audience about the other board members.
After the final vote, Schleicher appointed a task force to seek out future uses for the Wiley campus. Gail Edwards was appointed to chairwoman the committee.
wgragg@wacotrib.com
757-6901
Comments
By jhalbert cosme
Mar 24, 2009 10:05 PM | Link to this
The students of g.l. wiley middle school have been erupted of their education and the Waco isd school board is in fault. We the students have been going to different schools like ceaser chaves lake air and g.w.carver. the school board didnęt once think of the students feeling or how they felt about the situation. They only care about how much money they make from these different schools. Ok wiley didnęt have the most money we still had the best education ever in the school distric. being open for the first two weeks of school and then shutting down didnęt bring up the students and teachers joy all you did was torture and we donęt appreciate that. If you find it in your heart to think about how the students , teachers and parents felt about the closer you your self would feel how we feel. Me writing this letter is just a summary about how and why this is happing like a following student from Wiley said ęwe already live in bad location why make is worse . wiley was the only way students could find real education and I know you didnęt realy think about that but you should and if you did think a little bit harder please for goodness sake please just open wiley back up
By wiley student 07- 08
Mar 19, 2009 11:17 AM | Link to this
Wiley is the best school ever they only shut it down because it is the only school in east waco that has teachers who actuly teach the students something that they need to learn they dont care about thet students they only care about what the school board members tell them. They school board needs to watch they won the war but the fight is going on
By east side
Aug 21, 2008 6:11 PM | Link to this
All yall can go to hell. The people said they needed to improve their grades, they did that. They also said they need to improve their taks scores they did that. What else do you wont. When you dont know what you are talking about it is best to keep your mouth shut. And for the person who said thats why the welfare office is on our side of town, Its not.
Thank You
EAST SIDE
By orbital
Aug 14, 2008 11:29 AM | Link to this
One of the more unfortunate aspects of our society is that we all seem ready to find fault in others for criteria that we do not apply to ourselves.
In the aftermath of the Wiley closure, a popular criticism is that Wiley parents should have become more involved 5 years ago when the problem of accreditation first surfaced.
G.L. Wiley, with a total current enrollment of 216 students, operated with only 6th, 7th and 8th grades. For the most part, both the parents and children from 5 and 4 years ago are no longer part of the accreditation issue. During the last 2 years, both the 6th and 7th grades passed all the accreditation requirements. The lone remaining accreditation failure was in 8th grade science and the result of a very few low performing students. Evidently many think the parents of over 200 current passing students should have gotten more involved with the performance of children other than there own. By any standard this does not appear to be reasonable expectation.
In the recent WISD Bond Election, of the 63,109 registered Waco voters, less than 4000 actually voted and of these, only 2187 voted for the bond. It should be mentioned that this result benefited from the full political backing of the Tribune-Herald and the Let Waco Shine campaign. When you factor in the vote of city workers and school employees who mostly follow a path set by the City, the remaining voter support is very grim. At the end of the day, less than 2200 people cared enough to vote for the future of 15,176 WISD students. With less than 7% voter participation, apathy seems to be a citywide condition.
At best, criticism of Wiley parental involvement seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
By realist
Aug 14, 2008 11:02 AM | Link to this
For those of you who really believe that there is an Ashley....wake up. This is not a student. This is someone poking fun at the whole situation. An ignorant person trying to get a good laugh. How desperate for attention must we be? This is SERIOUS!
By Grammer Police
Aug 11, 2008 11:05 PM | Link to this
Ashley, I believe you are in dire need of an English remedial program. You have totally destroyed the English language as we know it, and I really don't see your type of grammar as a 21st century breakthrough style. Please seek help immediately.
By DDD
Aug 11, 2008 3:15 PM | Link to this
Ignore the adult pretending to be a child. Get a life!
By ashley
Aug 11, 2008 3:06 PM | Link to this
youlls ugly asses iz wrong for cloen down wiley cuz baby we is not 2 ghetto for youll and just cuz we iz black dont mean nothin youll just be hattin on niggaz like wiley so youll little ugly asses betta open back our school cuz we didnt do nothin 2 youll wight people that iz rases like youll
By DDD
Aug 11, 2008 2:53 PM | Link to this
Ashley honey what did you say????
By null
Aug 10, 2008 11:45 AM | Link to this
All I have to say is it's about time. I went to G.L. Wiley for 6th and 7th grade back in the 80's. It was a mess then and it's still a mess. Good riddance.
[1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10] next
Commenting is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F, except on Tuesday when it's open until 9 p.m.
Post a comment
*HTML not allowed in comments. Your e-mail address is required.