Rochester school closures: 'She cried when I told her,' says a grandma. Others don't care. (2024)

Right about the time Rochester Schools Superintendent Carmine Peluso flipped to a PowerPoint slide with the heading "Recommendation — School Closures," phones across the city were ringing.

Eleven names of 11 schools.

The calls were pre-recorded messages informing parents that Peluso was about to read the name of their children's school aloud.

The families of more than 4,000 children had to be reached.

For each of those families and others across Rochester, Peluso's proposal inevitably signifies a major disruption and countless broken relationships.

"My granddaughter, she's a smart little cookie. She cried when I told her," said a district grandparent, Jacqueline Wearen. The girl attends Walter Cooper Academy School 10, just like her older siblings and many other children whom Wearen has cared for.

"She said, 'I'm going to miss my friends; I'm going to miss my teachers,'" Wearen said. "It hurts the little ones' feelings also."

The day after Peluso unveiled RCSD's major school reorganization and closure plan, students and parents at the affected schools were experiencing a range of emotions, from enthusiasm to confusion to grief. (The closure proposal is not yet finalized).

"I'm at a loss for words," LaToyia Hawkins said.

Her daughter is in her final year at Adlai Stevenson School 29, so she won't be affected by its closing. But Hawkins sent all seven of her children there. She saw teachers and staff help students learn to read and write, and also make sure they had a clean change of clothes, a healthy snack and a trusted adult to confide in.

"It’s like a big family," she said. "They talk about no child left behind — that’s the school where nobody’s going to be left behind. No one’s going to be hungry, no one’s going to be dirty."

Across town at the Franklin campus, students met the news of their school's potential demise with a shrug. That same day a girl had her nose broken in a dramatic fight, several of them said, her blood splattering on the school floor.

"It’s not, you know, a good school," 12th grader Lynice Lindo said. "No one comes to school anyway. So you can’t really say anything against it."

Just then Anthony Negron walked by. His son is in ninth grade at Franklin — but only on paper. Negron had been at the school to get transfer forms processed. He'll home-school him if necessary rather than let him attend Franklin.

"It's just not a good school," he said. "It's sad, but there's no way I'm going to send my son here."

Long-planned closures

RCSD enrollment has been on a mostly uninterrupted decline for 50 years.

The district has closed dozens of schools and programs in response, most recently Leadership Academy for Young Men in 2022.

Peluso's proposal would be one of the single most impactful moments in that history, closing 11 schools, opening five others and rearranging the district into elementary, middle and high schools. The board must approve it next month before it takes effect in 2024-25.

Only by downsizing its physical footprint, Peluso said, can the district put qualified and certified teachers in front of all its children. "This reconfiguration and its impact shouldn't be a shock to anyone," he said.

Indeed, several of the school closures were predictable. School 39 was targeted for closure by Lesli Myers-Small in 2021, while School 29 and RISE Community School are on the state Education Department's Comprehensive School Improvement list, the most critical designation.

Franklin last year had a memorably chaotic school year, including an incident where three students narrowly escaped being shot while pinned up against the school door.

Donovan Williams, an 11th grader, said many of his friends transferred out after that.

"I wouldn't say it's a really bad school like some people make it out," he said. "But, at times — it's a really bad school."

Peluso and the school board have pledged to gather community feedback before the final vote, giving parents a chance to find out more information or share their feelings. Organized campaigns have saved schools from closure before.

Luke Winkelman, a sixth-grade teacher at Walter Cooper Academy, said teachers, staff and families are organizing a campaign against their school's inclusion on the closure list.

"The goal in the building right now … is to show up to the board meetings and just show our love and support for the school," he said.

But a majority of board members, including President Cynthia Elliott, have signaled that they agree with the general outline of the proposal. Creating such a plan was understood to be Peluso's weightiest assignment when he was hired last year.

Now he has turned it in.

Hoping for help: 'It's heartbreak'

For Eloise Headlam, the inclusion of Walter Cooper Academy on the closure list was a harsh blow.

She has two children there and also works at the school in a special education classroom. Her son went there as well but now is in seventh grade at Monroe Lower School. It, too, will close.

"It's heartbreak," she said. "It's a lot to see it from both points of view, as a parent as well as a staff member."

'The adults can go to hell': Walter Cooper, Alice Young see namesake schools proposed to close

Her daughter organized a blanket drive at school last year to help the unhoused, Headlam said. Her first question on hearing the school was closing was whether she'd still be able to do it again.

"No one's here by accident," Headlam said. "This is a place you choose, because of the culture among each other. ... These are my kids' aunts and uncles, from the janitors to the people at the top."

Johncia Redfield, another mother at Walter Cooper Academy, said she was sad to hear it is closing but not surprised.

"Over time it's been kind of a slow decline with changing staff and changing principals," she said. "I was hoping we'd get more help instead of this coming along."

Headlam was thinking not just of her own two children but of those in her special education classroom.

The fourth- and fifth-graders she teaches have been together since kindergarten, she said, and will struggle to readjust to a new building.

"We had a meeting and then we got our faces together to not show our babies that our hearts are broken," she said. "So many people have been crying today."

From 2018: How many schools has RCSD closed since 2001?

The school board is scheduled to vote on the reconfiguration plan Oct. 19. There is one full business meeting before then, at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 28. To sign up to speak or to submit comments in writing, email boardofeducation@rcsdk12.org by noon the day of the meeting.

Justin Murphy isa veteran reporterat the Democrat and Chronicle and author of "Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger: School Segregation in Rochester, New York."Follow him on Twitter attwitter.com/CitizenMurphyor contact him atjmurphy7@gannett.com.