Stanton Elementary fights again

EIGHT YEARS AGO, parents at E.M. Stanton Elementary School fought off a district plan to close the school.

Now they'll have to fight again.

Stanton, at 17th and Christian streets, is among the nine schools that the School Reform Commission will consider closing in the first round of the district's Facilities Master Plan.

"I think it's bad, because a lot of kids go here. I went here," said Khadijah Simmons, 24, the mother of a Stanton first-grader. "I don't want them to close it."

According to district statistics, Stanton, built in 1925, was only about half filled last school year.Eric and Felicia Kraus, who have four children at Stanton, said they would be worried if they had to send their children to nearby neighborhood school Alcorn Elementary.

"This [Stanton] is one of the better schools in the city," Eric Kraus, 33, said. "[If it closes] I would try to get them into a charter school, because [the neighborhood school is] pretty bad."

In fact, students from Stanton would be offered two reassignment options, either Arthur Elementary (20th and Catharine streets) or Childs Elementary (16th and Wharton).

In hopes of clearing up the confusion created by the plan for closing schools, the district plans 17 community meetings, starting later this month.

"I really hope they don't close it," Felicia Kraus, 32, said. "Since this is a smaller school with one class for each grade, I guess that's why they keep trying to close it. It's such a shame."