The School Board will consider three high-profile topics at its Wednesday meeting at 7 p.m. at the Lindholm Building, 222 W. Maple Ave.

It will examine administration’s recommendations to change feeder patterns for middle schools beinning in the 2010-2011 school year. It will consider the open-choice period for the new STEM School beginning in January, and it will consider changing the health insurance provider for emplyees, which they were notified of late Friday.

The feeder issue is linked to the controversial proposal to close three elementary school, including the largely Hispanic White Rock.

Here are parts of  the explanatory letter from Superintendent Todd Gray:

The primary reason for this plan is to provide an improved educational structure for all students. A secondary reason is to proactively plan for operating efficiencies and budget constraints in the coming years.

The district has held community input sessions to provide additional information, answer questions, and provide an opportunity to offer feedback to the Board of Education prior to their final decision. A number of parent recommendations will be implemented in this plan.
Building Repurpose:
Randall will close as an attendance area school and become a Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) school. Students within the Randall attendance area will go to neighboring attendance areas.
Saratoga will close as an attendance area school and become a grade 6-8 STEM annex. Students within the Saratoga attendance area will go to Whittier or Rose Glen.
White Rock will close as an attendance area school. The site will be used for alternative education programs, iQ Academy and administration. Many of the White Rock attendance area students will go to their neighborhood schools. Students receiving ESL/Bilingual services may receive services in their attendance area school or another school dependent on type of service needed.
La Casa de Esperanza, Waukesha’s Hispanic community agency disapproves of the proposed changes for White Rock.

Pleasant Hill will close as an attendance area school and may or may not remain vacant for one year while a district team explores possible use as a future charter school site. Pleasant Hill attendance area will go to Hillcrest.

The Lindholm Office will close as a district building. Administration will be moved to White Rock building during the 2011-2012 school year.
Dual Language programs provide instruction in Spanish to both English and Spanish speaking students. This allows students to learn a second language. The program will continue at Banting and is proposed to begin at Bethesda in 2010.
Developmental Bilingual Programs provide instruction for students that speak Spanish as their primary language. The program will continue at Blair and begin at Heyer. The program at Banting and Whittier may be phased out over time.
Intensive ESL Programs provide instruction for students that speak a primary language other than English. The program will continue at Hadfield and may begin at Hawthorne.

Anselmo Villarreal, executive director of Waukesha’s La Casa de Esperanza, said Tuesday that he and his agency were backing efforts to stop the closure of White Rock Elementary School, a facility known for its bilingual program for Hispanics.

School District Administration is proposing to parcel White Rock pupils among three other elementary schools as part of its larger plan to move 6^th graders into middle school. The shakeup would provide the cash strapped district more than $1 million in savings on building use and transportation costs, school officials say.

At a morning meeting at La Casa, Villarreal said school administration has not provided his agency nor concerned parents with details that are needed to justify the proposed closing. His support for the parents puts a powerful voice in their corner.

“The School District wants to maximize use of facilities and resources,” Villarreal said. “But what’s more important than anything else is the education of our children.”

Villarreal called the staff and the school “remarkable.”

“We cannot support the closing of White Rock,” he said. “We need to know that the great successes of White Rock will be duplicated. We don’t have answers for that and we don’t know where our children will go.”

No one from district administration or the School Board was there.

Villarreal said he sent a letter to the district last week that says he would not support the closing of White Rock.

Tony Baez, president of the Council for Spanish Speaking Inc., said the closure proposal falls into an economic strategy among school district administrators nationwide to “tighten up.”

“We’ve spent too much time building bilingual schools to let a school superintendent who basically lasts (in the district) for about three years,” Baez said. “Superintendents come and go but not the community.”

The district has held several neighborhood meetings, some at La Casa, to explain its rationale for the proposed closure, saying the school would have too few students and transportation costs could be cut because only one-third of the school’s pupils live inside its enrollment boundaries.

Parent Jose Lopez said at the meeting that he was confused by all of the facts and figures the district is using to justify the closing.

“There are so many official arguments,” Lopez said. “I get confused. I feel lied to.”

The proposal has yet to be a ted on the School Board, which reportedly is conflicted about the idea.