ST. LOUIS 鈥 City schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams laid out a new vision Wednesday for Vashon High School 鈥 one that would turn the chronically low-performing school into one with selective admission requirements and a focus on international business and finance.
The historic basketball powerhouse on Cass Avenue has suffered from low achievement for years. Students walked out of the building in September, complaining of poor learning conditions, such as fights and an overabundance of classes taught by substitute teachers.
The school is in desperate need of change, Adams said. 鈥淩ight now, the culture is not a culture around success,鈥 he said.
The proposal was part of the 2015-16 budget and that Adams described to the district鈥檚 Special Administrative Board. The move to revamp Vashon represents a broader effort by the district to move away from large-scale traditional high schools 鈥 known as comprehensives 鈥 in favor of magnet and choice campuses where students show greater success.
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Those schools include Clyde C. Miller Career Academy, Carnahan School of the Future, and Gateway STEM High School, where course offerings are tailored to meet students鈥 individual interests.
Last year, Adams closed Beaumont High, a comprehensive high school that became the first to integrate in 1954, but whose enrollment and academics had been on the decline for more than a decade. The closure came months after the district opened the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, a selective enrollment school that outperformed some of St. Louis County鈥檚 top high schools in 2014.
Discussions about transforming Vashon began in October. Both alumni groups have been at the table.
Cozy Marks Jr., chairman of Vashon Unified Alumni Association, said he was in support of a change. 鈥淎nything to improve the education of the kids would be a great start,鈥 he said. 鈥淛ust don鈥檛 change the name.鈥
Getting Vashon on a better path has been a years-long struggle.
Its building on Cass Avenue was built in 2002 as part of an effort called the Vashon Compact to transform the poverty-stricken Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood. The school had community backing, a strong alumni network and the support of local corporations.
Nearly a decade later, Vashon remains one of the lowest-performing high schools in Missouri.
The district is working on the admissions criteria for the new Vashon. Adams said current Vashon students would be given some leeway to stay. About 645 are enrolled this year.
鈥淎t the end of the day, what we want to do is improve these schools,鈥 Adams said.
The Vashon proposal is one of the most dramatic components of a plan that the Special Administrative Board will be voting on later this winter or spring, after the public has a chance to weigh in at town hall meetings.
The goal is to make schools excellent, Adams said. Though the district posted the most dramatic gains statewide in its performance last year, based on the Missouri Annual Performance Report, about 70 percent of district schoolchildren read below grade level, he pointed out.
鈥淚f there is one student not reading at grade level, we have not done the task,鈥 Adams said.
The proposal includes closing College Prep High School, another academically troubled comprehensive school, next year. The school opened in 2012 to take in the Imagine charter school students, many of whom transferred into the district schools when the state shuttered their schools for academic failure.
The school 鈥渘ever caught on,鈥 Adams said, and enrollment has dropped to 290 students. Adams said he would be meeting with parents at the school this week.
Efforts to target the lowest-performing schools with intense oversight will continue, Adams said.
This year, the district spent an additional $6.4 million for more counselors, social workers and nurses in 18 of the lowest-achieving buildings. It paid for classes for teachers to improve their reading instruction, as well as contracts for high-dosage reading and math tutoring for hundreds of students.
An additional nine schools not meeting any district expectations will get more intensive support next year, though no additional resources for the tutoring and added staff.
The district鈥檚 K-12 enrollment is expected to slightly dip, to about 23,890 students. No layoffs are expected, Adams said. But the $286.4 million proposed budget will require that some positions be eliminated through attrition.
After the presentation, Adams said the district would work more with the community on figuring out a future for its vacant buildings.
鈥淲e have not been transparent about what we are doing,鈥 he said.
Over the years, declines in city school enrollment have led to dozens of school closures. Forty-three schools have closed since 2003, according to the district. Though 42 buildings have been sold, 35 sit empty, creating eyesores and nuisances in neighborhoods across town.
Adams said the district wanted to work with charters who want the buildings. Charter school advocates have long said the district has been difficult on this issue, taking buildings off the market when the charters try to bid, for example.
But on Thursday, the governing board approved up to $2.2 million to renovate the old Pruitt School building for KIPP 鈥 the Knowledge Is Power Program charter school network that plans to open an elementary school northwest of downtown.
The district鈥檚 partnership with KIPP gives the network free use of buildings in exchange for enrollment and test scores, among other things.
The district is also working with officials at De La Salle Middle School, a private school that will become a charter school in August, on an agreement for use of the old Williams School building a few blocks from the school鈥檚 current location in the Ville neighborhood.
鈥淚f the district is willing to cooperate with charters, we are delighted to hear that news,鈥 said Robbyn Wahby, Mayor Francis Slay鈥檚 education liaison, who works with charter schools. 鈥淚t has to be quick, it has to be consistent, it has to be open and it has to be transparent.鈥