Pinckney School needs more students, but Jordan Lerner says it can’t have his daughter.

Lerner, chairman of the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods, is a leading advocate of keeping neighborhood schools open in the face of school closings and consolidations.

He’s argued in interviews and at public forums that neighborhoods would die if the Lawrence school board turned its back on any of these hubs of neighborhood activity.

But Lerner’s daughter doesn’t attend Pinckney, 810 W. Sixth St., her neighborhood school four blocks from home.

The third-grader is a transfer student at Hillcrest School, 1045 Hilltop Drive, nearly one mile from the Lerner residence.

“My personal deal doesn’t change what I’m fighting for,” Lerner said Thursday.

He said his daughter wanted to go to Hillcrest, which he said was the best elementary school in the district.

The difference between what Lerner preaches and practices underscores the difficulties school officials and individual families have when it comes to the sometimes-emotional issue of choosing schools.

Topic of conversation

The clash between Lerner’s activism and family decisions has not gone unnoticed among those involved with the debate on the various proposals for closing or rebuilding schools being weighed by the board.

It’s been discussed at meetings involving Lerner and school board members. It’s also been talked about at association gatherings, Lerner said.

Scott Morgan, Lawrence school board president, said he had asked Lerner about the disconnect between his public advocacy and personal decisions about where his child is schooled.

Morgan said Lerner told him he wanted his daughter to attend Hillcrest because it had more cultural diversity than Pinckney.

Morgan said Lerner family’s actions made it hard to understand what folks meant when advocating preservation of neighborhood schools.

“That’s the problem,” said Morgan, an advocate of school consolidation. “We’re asked to be supportive of neighborhood schools but have such a diversity of opinion about what that means.”

The board is evaluating proposals that would close at least three of its 18 elementary schools and replace one junior high school and the alternative high school.

Bigger fish to fry

Board member Jack Davidson, who plans to back limited school closures only if the targeted buildings are replaced with new structures, said issues facing the district were bigger than one family.

“It doesn’t bother me what political position people take or where they send their children as long as they’re supportive of the public school system,” Davidson said.

Holli Joyce, a longtime parent volunteer at Pinckney, said the association chairman’s choice of elementary schools had been noticed.

“We would welcome his daughter at Pinckney,” she said. “We would welcome his enthusiasm at Pinckney for issues he deals with.”

Lerner said he hadn’t made an effort to hide the fact his daughter doesn’t attend her family’s neighborhood school.

“You have to be honest with people,” he said. “I don’t want to come across as being a hypocrite.”

He said his daughter started public school at Hillcrest. After his family moved from a residence within the Hillcrest boundary area to a home in the Pinckney boundary, the girl was granted a transfer to stay at Hillcrest.

“Once you have your kid in a school, you’re comfortable,” Lerner said. “It’s also the best school in the district. We don’t have any problems with Pinckney. It’s what you know.”

Transfers granted

This school year, about 335 of 5,350 Lawrence elementary school students received transfers to attend a different school in the district.

Randy Weseman, superintendent of Lawrence public schools, said transfers from Pinckney were troubling because that midtown school was below its ideal enrollment.

“We need children at Pinckney,” he said. “But he’s (Lerner) abiding by the policies of the school district.”

Weseman said transfers added a layer of complexity to interpretation of neighborhood school.

“Here is a perfect example,” Weseman said. “It means something different to Jordan than it means to other people.”

Lerner said he agreed that the definition of neighborhood school was a moving target.

“There’s an ongoing discussion on how you define neighborhood,” he said. “We moved three blocks and it changed our school. We didn’t change neighborhoods.”