George,

The Jefferson School and it's pre-school program are very important issues for the city and our residents, and they need to be addressed immediately.

The best possible outcome based on the needs of the children and honoring African American heritage in the city would be to renovate the building and keep the pre-school program centralized. Unfortunately, neither the school system or the city have the available funds to accomplish this. Hence, while we keep the ideal of preserving the pre-school program at Jefferson, we must also look at the alternatives.

As our first priority we must keep the pre-school program intact and centralized. This has got to become a priority for the city because it is the needs of the children that must come first. Our city leaders must commit themselves to the early educational needs of all our children to ensure their success in life.

Now, the school board believes that presently they have too many elementary schools and that it will become economically neccessary to consolidate them to five. This frees up one school for the pre-school program. This also will create much needed space for the several hundred other children who need to attend the Jefferson pre-school program but can not because the current location can't accomodate them. This opportunity must come to the table right now. We can not wait. If we work together to implement such a change, we can have the pre-school at a new and bigger centralized location by September 2003.

Our second priority is the renovation of the Jefferson School building. We need about $900,000 to keep it operating or 5 to 8 million to completely renovate and maintain it's historic integrity. I think we can do it for 5, but if the city lets themselves get ripped off - it'll cost closer to 8 million.

Also, because the African American community here has historically gotten the short end of the stick ( and I'm being polite here), I believe that their vision for the building must come first. It is crucial to form a representaive task force to look at all possible uses and funding sources. I suggest having an African American majority on the task force with representatives from the community, the school board, city council, as well as someone from the pre-school program and Nancy
O' Brien and Alexandria Searls.

I would demand that the city offer a matching grant for funding and an initial donation to get the task force up and going. By showing city support, it will be much easier to get grants from other organizations. (Grant writing takes anywhere from 6 months to 1 year for results.)

I also think that all private/public partnerships should be formally considered and brought before the public. There are a lot of good ideas floating around and I don't think we should bite off our nose to spite our face. We should work to negotiate a deal requiring the pre-school to be included in any renovations or building plans for the school.

Anything is possible if we get organized and work together. But, we better do it soon or we risk losing both the building and a centralized pre-school program for our children.

Joan Fenton (electronic mail, January 28, 2002)