Print edition: 
A group of parents and others who oppose the planned closure of five Wichita schools have scheduled a “sit-in” protest Friday near Northeast Magnet High School.
The protest, planned for 11 a.m., seeks “face-to-face discussions with people in the communities affected, the kind of discussions that were lacking in … community meetings” organized last month by the Wichita school district, said Janice Bradley, an organizer of the event.
The group plans to protest cuts in state per-pupil funding for schools as well as the Wichita superintendent’s plan to close five schools as a cost-cutting measure.
Superintendent John Allison’s boundary proposal calls for closing four elementary schools – Bryant, Emerson, Lincoln and Mueller. It also would close Northeast Magnet High, 1847 N. Chautauqua, and move its program to a new high school being built at 53rd North and Rock Road.
Allison says the district must close some schools so it can afford to open and operate five new schools being built as part of a $370 million bond issue.
On a Facebook page created to promote Friday’s protest, opponents say the plan would move children to “faraway, factory-sized schools, and empty schools will leave holes in the neighborhoods, driving down property values.”
The page urges people to show up just south of the high school with signs and chairs for the outdoor sit-in.
Bradley and others also oppose the district’s plan to keep in place a patchwork of school assignments in the so-called “assigned attendance area,” from which students – mostly African-Americans – are bused to seven high schools and 10 middle schools.
Officials say they need more time to gather input and develop new school boundaries for that area, bounded roughly by Central, 29th Street North, I-135 and Hillside.
School board members will discuss the boundary plan Monday and will hold a special hearing on school closures March 5. Following the hearing, they are expected to vote on the plan, which would go into effect in the fall.
Bradley and others say they organized the protest to make their voices heard before the board’s final vote.
The board still “has not responded with explanations to specific questions about the decisions to close schools,” she said.
