Gary schools manager plans to close Wirt-Emerson at end of year

The Bailly Preparatory Academy, at 4821 Georgia St. in the city’s Glen Park section, now an elementary, was named as the site for the district’s new middle school for grades 6-8. Bailly was formerly a middle school before its conversion to an elementary.

Emergency manager Peggy Hinckley told the state Distressed Unit Appeals Board Friday she will shutter Wirt-Emerson, 210 N. Grand Blvd., along with the central district office at 1988 Polk St., to help reduce a $1.5 million monthly shortfall in the district that’s crept up to the edge of the financial abyss with $115 million in accumulated debt, in addition to the monthly deficit.

Hinckley said the central office will be relocated into a wing at West Side that has its own separate entrance. Hinckley said she hoped the central office’s location at West Side would bring the community “a measure of comfort.”

In addition, Hinckley plans to realign grade configurations next fall into a K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 system. That change will spur a redistricting.

The DUAB did not take action on Hinckley’s recommendations, but is expected to do so in a March 2 meeting.

Citizens can comment on the changes at a 6 p.m. Wednesday school board meeting at the Gary Area Career Center.

The DUAB also approved a $3.75 million loan so the district can make its March payroll.

The proposed changes would leave the Gary Community School Corp. with one high school – West Side. However, the school district also finances the operation of the Roosevelt College and Career Academy that’s run by a private company, EdisonLearning Inc. Hinckley hopes to renegotiate its contract and relocate students so Roosevelt can also close.

Hinckley, whose Gary Schools Recovery LLC firm was hired by the state in July to oversee the reeling school district, said the district of about 4,700 students has too much classroom space and not enough students for its buildings.

A feasibility study showed West Side, with about 700 students, operates at just 22 percent capacity. The school can hold about 3,400 students. Wirt-Emerson has about 500 students, including 225 high school students. It operates at 49 percent capacity. It can hold about 1,090 students.

In terms of each building’s physical status, the report rated West Side fair, compared to Wirt-Emerson’s poor ranking, with serious roof and air quality problems.

Wirt gained its name from the city’s legendary first superintendent, William A. Wirt, who launched the district in 1907 and ran it until 1938. He established a groundbreaking education format based on a work-study-play system that attracted progressive educators to Gary from across the country.

The high school, in the city’s Miller section, opened in 1939.

Its last year as a traditional high school was 2009. When the Gary School Board closed Emerson High School, it moved the district’s popular visual and performing arts program to Wirt.

Eric Parrish, an accountant with MGT Consulting, the parent company of Gary Schools Recovery LLC, said the district is beginning to shore up its finances. He said past long-standing debts to the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. and Illinois School Bus Co. Inc. have been paid.

Parrish said the district is considering a referendum to offset debt as one of initiatives.

He said the district would likely seek more loans this year, but could be self-sufficient by early 2019.

Meanwhile, Hinckley said the district could gain more revenue through a pending memorandum of agreement with Ivy Tech to house its building trades, welding and cyber security courses at the Gary Area Career Center.

Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson said she was disappointed by the announcement, but not surprised.

“It’s indicative of all the challenges, not just the school city, but the entire city is facing,” she said. “There’s just no easy answers. The thing I can do best is work hard to bring businesses to the city and increase the assessed valuation.”

Closure ‘a shocker’

Rumors of Wirt-Emerson’s impending closure had circulated in Miller for several months.

The announcement Friday brought sadness from former students who felt they were able to thrive in the arts program.

“Initially, it’s like a shocker,” said Maya Leon, a 2017 graduate and salutatorian. “I honestly thought Wirt-Emerson was one of the better schools in Gary.”

Being at Wirt-Emerson opened doors, she said. She flourished in the performing arts school, playing the violin since seventh grade, she said. It pushed her to get a music scholarship to Valparaiso University, where she’s a freshman.

In high school, she remembers devoted teachers, traveling to China, and making movies in class.

“I felt like we left a mark,” she said. “It was great to watch.”

“The school has had its ups and downs. It’s still a great school,” she said. “A lot of kids that would have graduated there would have been enriched.”

Teacher’s Union President GlenEva Dunham said between 20 to 25 teacher retirements expected this year, about half from high schools.

The number of teachers that can transfer to West Side will depend on how many students transfer there, she said.

At Wirt-Emerson this year, multiple teachers chose to retire, she said. Staff morale this year was “kinda low,” she said.

“They kinda feel that program is being dismantled,” Dunham said. “We are going to try to keep arts at West Side.”

“We are just hoping that the kids will come,” she said.

Parents will ‘do what’s best for my kids’

Wirt-Emerson PTA President Eloise Smith said she will weigh whether to send her three youngest of seven children, aged 15, 14 and 11 to West Side. She and her husband will likely send her teenagers there for at least a month.

“I just hope that they continue with the arts,” she said.

Smith said she attended both recent open houses at West Side and Wirt-Emerson. At Wirt, she felt parents and students should have had a greater voice in how they would be affected by a closure.

The West Side open house and tour impressed her. She credited Hinckley’s team with bringing more information on the district’s financial problems to the forefront for parents.

But, Smith said she felt many parents felt they had been kept out of the loop in the closure decision.

“It’s discouraging going back and forth, not telling us what you are going to do,” she said.

In the past year, the school had lost piano, drama and arts teachers to retirement, she said.

“Some have already transferred, because of the uncertainty,” she said.

A recent state report showed that only 39 percent of Gary’s children attend the city’s public schools. More than 60 percent attend mainly charters or public schools in nearby cities.

Overall, she’ll look to see where her children have a better chance of getting a good education, she said.

“If there’s chaos, then... I have to second guess,” she said. “I have to do what’s best for my kids.”

Miller fears school closure could stall growth

Miller Citizen’s Corp. President George Rogge said he supported Hinckley’s plan to consolidate down to one high school. He has pitched a plan to DUAB to convert Wirt-Emerson into a middle school.

He has not heard any official reaction from DUAB, he said. Rogge noted Miller has feeder elementary schools – Marquette and Banneker that could send students there.

“The community is ready to help,” he said. There is a big community of retired educators in Miller, he said, but the decision was Hinckley’s.

“If they decide on March 2 that they are just going to close the school and Peggy is going to decommission it, then what else can you do?”

If Wirt-Emerson, sitting on on a main thoroughfare to Marquette Park, is left vacant, it could damper the progress made in Miller’s recent commercial revitalization, he said.

“It’ll take the enthusiasm, the momentum out of everyone,” Rogge said. “That’s what I fear.”

Preventing vandalism would be “a difficult task,” he said.