To the editor:

I graduated from Lawrence High School in 1997, the last year of one high school. There were so many kids packed in that building, no one could follow what students were doing. The district opened another school because an enormous population of students was not good for learning, safety or the practical need to walk in the hallway.

Smaller schools operating on a human scale, where teachers know all the kids and community members know the teachers, is good for learning, for mental health and safer in the continuing pandemic. Cramming twice as many middle schoolers into Billy Mills and three elementary schools into Central may save a buck in the short term (I’m not convinced), but the short and long-term effects for kids and the community will be bad. The argument that poorer kids will do better once packed in with wealthier kids is not supported by education research.

My kids attended New York Elementary and now Central. These schools are more than schools; they are pillars of our neighborhood community. And time after time, the board looks for an eastside school to close to save money. The paint isn’t even dry on their closing Kennedy. Remember East Heights? Remember trying to close New York a decade ago? There is no equity in systematically targeting one side of town for closures. The board is making the choice to defund education and harm the east side of Lawrence. It is inexcusable and will be even more clearly so over time.

Erin Adamson,

Lawrence