Germantown High closure angers, saddens community

TO SAY the Germantown community is devastated that its high school of 99 years will close would be a grand understatement.

"You're wiping out a whole community," said Vera Primus, president of the Germantown Alumni Association.

"To find out your school is closing is so disheartening," said Angela Hanna, whose first and only job with the school district has been as guidance counselor at Germantown High. "You feel like you've been stabbed in the back."

"The spirit has been broken," said the Rev. LeRoi Simmons, founder and coordinator of the Germantown Clergy Initiative. "It's a sin and a shame."

In 2010, the long-troubled high school became a "promise academy," receiving extra money to beef up its academics. But Germantown will see the promise fade away just when student test scores are improving and not long after the school had been removed from the persistently dangerous list.

"What do you call a neighborhood without a school? Without a business?" Primus asked. "It's not a neighborhood. You're destroying a neighborhood."

Beyond the deep concerns about the future is anger over the district's handling of the closure and what critics say is a broken promise to keep the school open.

Everyone - students, staff and community leaders - fears for nearby businesses along Germantown Avenue, some of which are already closing. There's also the unwelcome sight of an additional vacant property in the neighborhood: Fulton Elementary, next door to Germantown High, is also closing.

The schools will join a pair of already unoccupied buildings nearby, the old Germantown City Hall and the YWCA.

"Anytime you have large, empty properties, that's going to have a negative impact on that corridor, specifically that stretch of Germantown Avenue," said Andy Trackman, board president of Germantown United Community Development Corp. "Having another large, empty building is not going to help in attracting new businesses."

And, of course, there are the kids. The students. The future.

"It's truly sad to see Germantown close down," said state Rep. Stephen Kinsey, a Germantown alum himself. "I feel bad about the education of kids in that area."

Students, teachers and community members believe dropout rates will increase, because many teens fear moving to their fierce rival, Martin Luther King High School.

"It's bad . . . people already don't get along," said Anthony Fleming, 18, a senior. "Now, you're going to have to worry about more fights than you would have to at a regular school."

"If you're in a school by yourself, full of people that you don't like, bullied everyday or jumped everyday," said senior Coshae Torrence, 18, "it's going to make you not want to go to school anymore."

Online: ph.ly/DNEducation