There was a very good turnout for this. There were a lot of comments. People were very passionate for keeping Barnes open and many people thought that Barnes is being signaled out for cuts because it’s a school in a low-income neighborhood. That this is a class issue.
There was discussion of the pros and cons of integrating low-income students with the higher income students of Wheeler. The pro arguement was the students may have better performance at Wheeler while the major cons were transportation issues, parental involvement would lower, Barnes children wouldn’t be able to participate in after-school activities for lack of transportation and that the Barnes children would never be accepted by the Wheeler children as it’s their school and the Barnes children would be seen as outsiders and treated as such.
One proposal suggested, that may be a possible compromise, is to close both Barnes and Wheeler and build a new school centrally located within the two areas so that the sacrifice isn’t so one-sided.
