OPINION: To protect equal opportunity, defend our neighborhood schools

The Anchorage School Board is considering devastating cuts to essential programs, and potential closure of diverse, high-performing neighborhood schools. To defend equal opportunity for all students regardless of race or economic background, let us commit ourselves to keep all high-performance, high-diversity schools open. Equal opportunity for our children, regardless of race or economic background, must continue to be central to our goals as a community, and the Anchorage School District’s mission.

In many years of volunteering with the Anchorage NAACP, including in my current role as president, I have always believed that our school system is the bedrock of equal opportunity. Diverse schools in Anchorage face two threats today:

• The Anchorage School Board is deciding whether to invest capital funds to rebuild the failing building for Inlet View Elementary, without which the school is likely to close in the near future.

• The board is considering other school closures, most of which can be avoided if the state Legislature simply provides adequate school funding.

We will all need to work together to fight for a Base Student Allocation increase during next year’s legislative session, but I want to highlight one diverse, high-performance neighborhood school that the Anchorage School Board has the power to save right now, thanks to appropriation of one-time capital funds from the Legislature. Consider how important Inlet View Elementary is for minority students:

• More than 44% of Inlet View students are racial minorities; that means Inlet View is more diverse than Anchorage as a whole — Anchorage is 61% white.

• African American kids are 6.5% of the students at Inlet View; that means Inlet View has more African American students per capita than Anchorage as a whole — Anchorage is 5.5% African American.

• Alaska Natives kids are 8.8% of the students at Inlet View; that means Inlet View has more Alaska Native students per capita than Anchorage as a whole — Anchorage is 7.5% Alaska Native.

• Of Inlet View’s 235 students, 91 are economically disadvantaged, 20 are English language learners and 27 have disabilities.

Inlet View is more diverse than Anchorage as a whole, and approximately half of the student body is economically disadvantaged, is learning English, or experiences a disability. Inlet View is also one of the highest-performance schools in the district, measured by academic outcomes. If the board fails to rebuild Inlet View and it closes, that will drag down academic performance for the entire district.

The School District should do everything in its power to provide a safe learning environment for any neighborhood school like Inlet View. High-achieving, high-diversity schools are critical for the success of the Anchorage School District. Inlet View’s building has deteriorated so much that a building replacement is more economical than renovation. The building is undersized, so failing to provide an adequately sized building will tend to exclude minority and working-class students who must have access to the incredible learning environment at Inlet View.

It is imperative that the school board appropriate the funds to rebuild this school as intended by the Legislature, and send a message about what the Anchorage School District is all about. We believe in our kids, we believe in diversity, and whatever challenges we face, together we will do whatever it takes to provide safe learning environments for our kids, and keep our high-performance, high-diversity neighborhood schools open.

If we don’t rebuild Inlet View, if we allow it to continue to fall apart around an incredible, diverse, high-achievement group of kids, what would that say about us as a community and a school system? These kids deserve a safe school to learn in, a school that’s big enough to accommodate the diversity that our community represents. The school board needs to move forward with this project now, and then all of us need to work together to demand the Legislature increase education funding next year.

Kevin McGee is president of the Anchorage NAACP.

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