The Springfield Public Schools administration has recommended to the Board of Education closing Pershing Elementary and Robberson Community School.
During the board's meeting Tuesday night, SPS Executive Director of Operations Dr. Travis Shaw recommended closing Robberson at the end of the 2023-2024 school year and re-assigning students to Boyd Elementary in August of 2024. He recommended closing Pershing K-5 at the end of the 2025-2026 school year and re-assigning students to Wilder and Field in August of 2026. Pershing is currently a K-8 school.
During a public hearing, several parents and a teacher asked the board to keep their schools open.
Beth Bales, a first grade teacher at Robberson, told the board her school offers something different for at-risk kids.
"We deal with all the crumminess in their lives, and in those little lives you're talking kindergarten to fifth grade. They're little lives," she said. "The things they've been exposed to — nothing that I've been exposed to. And they need us. They need a different way."
SPS will host Let's Talk Live events January 4 for Robberson and January 8 for Pershing where parents and staff can ask questions of administration.
Plans call for convening a hearing for Robberson on January 9 and for Pershing on January 16 with a board vote to follow each hearing.
The recommendation to close the schools comes after a demographic study by Davis Demographics, which found that Robberson and Boyd elementary schools are both underutilized due to low enrollment, and enrollment is expected to continue to decline over the next 10 years.
Pershing, which is scheduled to be renovated, would become a 6-8 school only, if the board decides to close its K-5 classrooms. The elementary school currently has 151 students, which the district said is "a very small elementary school."
SPS said the closures would improve organizational and fiscal efficiency.