No School Clourses in DCSD

Currently the administration of Davenport Community Schools has proposed the plan entitled Vision 2020 as a means to reduce budget expenditures. Part of the plan is to close at least one school. We disagree with this extreme and aggressive measure. We demand that Superintendent Tate as well as the DCSD Board members address these 6 items before closing one of our community schools.
1.) We demand a best practices school closure team be created of parents through out the district along with city and community leaders. This team will address the numerous issues involved in school closures with accurate data.
2.) Considering there is a possibility that Dr Tate could lose his license after his ethics hearing, we insist upon halting all school closure plans until the replacement superintendent has held the position for one year. This allows him or her to create their plan for the schools with the aide of public.
3.)We demand a Search and Selection Committee for both interim & permanent superintendent positions created of parents and community members from all economic and racial back grounds while also ensuring that the disabled community is represented in this mix.
4.) DCSD inequities can no longer be ignored. The district's Equity Committee has not met since 2012. This is not acceptable. The committee must be reformed with community leaders, parents, & city of Davenport leaders to create a plan to bridge that gap & correct the issue.
5.)DCSD Special Education has been audited by the state of Iowa revealing seven major state & federal laws being broken thus resulting in the denial of free, appropriate public education to approximately 88% of its students. This is damning since education is their only mission. Currently there is no suggested change of education plans to avoid this from happening in the future. This is not acceptable. We ask for a new plan to address the issues that resulted in the audit be presented to the public in effort to show transparency as well as attempt to regain public trust. We ask that the Special Education Council be regenerated to include a wider range of parents from different racial and economic backgrounds as well
as educators that are in the classroom with our children. We would also like to see the addition of Community members who are also invested in lessening the achievement gap.
6.) We ask that the bell schedule vote be rescinded allowing further investigation into what the actual savings could be since the amount of purposed saving has changed twice. This will ensure an opportunity to confirm  the purposed data is correct as it's presented.

It is a simple, yet reasonable request to ask that DCSD administration & school board members utilize best practices prior to closing yet another school. It is because of this we are asking them to address these major issues before making an irreversible decision that effects everyone within Davenport Schools. If you agree that these actions must be addressed before any school closures, please sign this petition.

Thank you.