Tuesday, November 08, 2005

It rings hollow......

Last night the principal of Clinton Middle School took reporters on a tour of her facility. She pointed out and complained about the number of stairways, the leaking roof, the plumbing and the lack of elevators.

If this bond election passes today, Clinton is scheduled to be demolished and a totally new school built. Not just repaired, but built from the ground up. It seems that the problems are just too insurmountable to consider fixing the place up. This will be the second school, BTW the first, to get a brand new school from our property taxes.

Isn't Clinton Middle School the site of the KIPP Academy? Or is it at Woods Elementary? Either way, its a major renovation. KIPP is the contract school just established by the TPS Board. Everyone in charter school circles knows that KIPP establishes charter schools across the country. Why doesn't TPS call it what it is? And how fair is it to other charter schools and Tulsa taxpayers to provide a facility for one and not the others?

By the way, am I the only product of TPS whose schools lacked air conditioning, elevators just for special ed students, stairwells galore, poor plumbing, etc.?

1 comment:

Red Bug said...

I would love to know the differences.

I don't recall anyone suffering from heat stroke during my days in school....wait a minute, yes I do! Several guys on our football team suffered heat exhaustion from the coach denying water during practices. That was outdoors.

About 2/3rds of my graduating class learned enough to pass the SAT or ACT and go on to college. Then, there were no remedial classes, so I guess we all learned, without any air-conditioning.