School Closure Proposals Detailed

Mobile County School Board members will hold public hearings in the next few weeks on a proposal to close some schools and move magnet programs.
The board decided Wednesday afternoon to hold the hearings on closing Hillsdale Middle School, Fonvielle Elementary School and Woodcock Elementary School.
They're also considering consolidating magnet programs at Chickasaw Elementary School and Clark Middle School and moving them to the old Shaw High School, and moving the magnet program at Old Shell Road School to Dunbar Creative and Performing Arts Middle School.
School officials blame the economic downturn for the proposed cutbacks.
Telva Niles lives across the street from Hillsdale Middle School.
She has two daughters in elementary school that she had hoped would go to Hillsdale.
Niles said, "I'm just trying to think of another school that's in the district that they may have to go to because they may have to go maybe ten miles away from where they are now."
Gloria Huff went to Hillsdale Middle School as a child and said many new families are building homes in the neighborhood.
Huff said, "A lot of kids moved out here from the downtown area. Where are they going to go?"
Mobile County School Superintendent Dr. Roy Nichols said administrators recommended the schools they did because they were under-enrolled, near other schools that could accommodate the extra students, and, especially in Hillsdale's case, we look at the conditions of the buildings that they are in to see whether we could avoid putting in exorbitant amounts of money for renovation and repair."
However, school board member Levon Manzie was concerned that inner-city and magnet schools are in the bulls eye.
Manzie said, "Let's look at all communities and make sure that we're not asking the inner city, which normally is the community that bears the brunt of cuts anyway, to take further cuts."
Dr. Nichols said he'll go back and take a second look.
Board members will hold public hearings later this month and hope to decide by the end of April whether to take any action.