Columbia Elementary Parents Form Group, Start Petition To Save School
Spokesperson Kyle Diaz said the Wenatchee School District did not inform the community of the process before announcing the closure and is not allowing enough time for discussion
On Tuesday, Feb. 13 I sat down with Kyle Diaz, a parent of two children who attend Columbia Elementary School in Wenatchee. We talked about how shuttering the school is going to affect his family and his community.
Diaz is a supervisor at Costco, and he and a group of other Columbia parents have organized a group called the Columbia Parent Advocacy Group. They started a petition to try to save the school and he has been taking every opportunity he can to speak out about the decision.
He was among the dozens of folks who spoke during the public comments time at the last School Board meeting on Jan. 23. It took nearly two hours to hear from everyone who signed up to speak that night.
In his hands were his notes for the remarks he planned to make at last night’s special board meeting. Diaz feels that the district isn’t taking into account how this decision will disproportionately impact a community with a high percentage of poor people. A lot of kids walk to Columbia, he said. Kids from single-parent households where mom or dad is working and can’t come pick them up. Some families only have one vehicle, he said. By closing down Columbia, the district isn’t just separating a group of students and teachers who have formed close bonds and achieved academic success, they are placing another burden on a population of people who already have enough weight to bear.
In addition to that, a few of his main criticisms are lack of transparency and lack of process from the school district.
“It seems like a lot of decisions that are being made are being discussed behind closed doors, and we as parents or the community don’t have a say,” he said.
He said the district made it seem like the decision to close Columbia was “a done deal” but in reality, they have to allow the community to provide input at at least one public hearing on the issue. They also have to wait a minimum of 90 days before acting on the decision, per state law.
The WSD has scheduled two public meetings to give the public opportunities to weigh in. One is on March 21 and the other is on April 18. Both hearings are going to be in the Wenatchee High School commons at 6 pm.
For detailed information about the budget crisis facing the Wenatchee School District, and the measures the school board and administration are taking to deal with that crisis, visit the budget information page of the WSD website here: https://www.wenatcheeschools.org/budget/index
You can listen to my entire interview with Diaz on Soundcloud here:
And you watch a shorter video interview with him here:
If you would like to access the petition the Columbia Parents Advocacy Group started, here’s another link to that.
I will continue to follow this story as it develops, and plan on attending both community hearings on the matter.
Thank you for shedding light on this, Dominick!
Well said Mr. Diaz.