This letter comes from a family with three children in Northeast Corvallis schools. Each of their children’s schools is being targeted for closure or possible closure by the District. Originally submitted to the School District, we’ve made minor edits for clarity and brevity and removed some personal contact information.
Reminder, the School District has scheduled a Feedback Session for tonight, October 27, at Letitia Carson Elementary from 6:30 to 8 pm. This will be in-person only, District officials are not offering a remote option.
Letter from Jamie Sarabia
Let me preference this by saying that we’re going to be honest with you all… we feel targeted. Our family has three kids in three different schools and you’re planning on closing not just one school, Cheldelin Middle School, but two of them now, and Letitia Carson Elementary. There have also been rumors circulating for quite awhile now on the third, Crescent Valley High, closing as well. We don’t feel supported at all….
We are the Sarabia family. I am Jaime Sarabia, our family would like for me to write to you all an advocate so that our voices may, hopefully, be heard. We have a 2nd grader on an IEP Plan at Letitia Carson Elementary School, a 6th grader on a 504 Plan at Cheldelin Middle School and a 10th grader who is on a Varsity sports team at Crescent Valley High School. We are very active volunteers at our children’s elementary, middle and high schools and have served on school PTA’s and on the school districts Renaming Task Force and have been asked to serve on the school districts Theater Diversity Advisory Committee (TDAC) in the past. We have served on various city and community initiatives related to Equity, Diversity and Fair Opportunities for ALL. We reside in Northeast Corvallis.
Those of us that live in Northeast Corvallis are often forgotten. We are literally “those people that live on the other side of the tracks” ;on the other side of the train tracks along Highway 99w. Our area of town is mostly known for the HP campus, the ‘Melon Shack,’ ‘Trillium Children’s Farm Home.’ ‘Home Depot’, ‘AMC’ movie theaters and now the new ‘Chick-fil-A’ in town. We are an area of town that is mostly low-middle income. We have multiple mobile home parks, countless apartment complexes and multiple low income housing complexes. Our racial backgrounds of those of us that reside here are very diverse. We ourselves are an Hispanic duel income household.
We feel forgotten, unheard, and overlooked, especially by you all in this critical moment in our children’s developmental years. We were not given much notice on the proposal of our 6th graders middle school closing, in early September, just after the school year began. Our 6th grader was devastated. He looked forward to attending Cheldelin Middle School so much and wanted to follow in his older siblings’ footsteps and get promoted to high school from Cheldelin. He even attempted to begin a fundraising effort with his peers to help keep their school open when he heard the news.
When there were listening sessions originally scheduled, none, none at all, were scheduled anywhere near our Northeast Corvallis neighborhoods. This should not have occurred to us, we are the ones affected the most from these school closures and consolidation. Eventually a listening session that was scheduled for Linus Pauling (ironically where the new junior high will be) was switched to Cheldelin Middle. With our work schedules and illnesses we were not able to attend any of the listening sessions. But we have followed along and watched the school board meeting on YouTube.
Are you all aware that Northeast Corvallis once had an elementary school AND a middle school? It was called Fairplay Elementary; The Fairplay ‘Falcons’. The school was located on Highway 20 and Conifer Blvd. After serving the students in Northeast Corvallis for 50 years it was shuttered and closed due to a school district need of consolidation in 2002. It was then eventually sold to the Corvallis Waldorf school which is located on the Fairplay campus now.
Cheldelin Middle School has served the Northeast Corvallis community for over 50 years now as well and it too will be shuttered and closed, much like its elementary counterpart. We will now have no schools at all in Northeast Corvallis. And our next closest elementary school, Letitia Carson Elementary, is closing as well. This is a school that you are choosing to close whose name was changed a mere 3 years ago to represent a very important local historical figure that is important to the state of Oregon, a person who was one of Oregon’s first black farmers and not only one of the first black farmers, a woman black farmer.
What kind of message does that send to the students who were proud to be at a school named after a person that represents them? What kind of message does that send to the black and brown citizens of Corvallis?
As mentioned before Our 6th grader greatly looked forward to attending Cheldelin Middle School when they were are Leticia Carson Elementary. The biggest thing they looked forward to was walking/ biking to school. In order to walk/bike to elementary school at Letitia Carson it was a mile along a busy Conifer Blvd, across train tracks and a very busy Highway 99 and then again along a busy road on Walnut Blvd, which recently has had sidewalks closed for repair.
Now there is no walking or biking to any of our schools with your plan of making Mountain View, a school outside the city limits in Lewisburg, our children’s new boundary, home school. Our children who are finally beginning to excel in their current environments. Our 2nd grader who has struggled with learning disabilities since preschool. Our 2nd grader has struggled and fought to go to school every morning, until this school year, he is having his best year yet and is so happy and proud of his achievements. Uprooting him, and sending him to a new school, with a different environment, that is K-8 with older kids in a more crowded building, instead of keeping him in his calming and familiar K-5 we fear will send him back to not having a positive educational experience and fall further behind his peers again. We have had at least 1 child constantly attend Letitia Carson Elementary since our eldest, and now 10th grader, began kindergarten there in 2015.
Our 6th grader, who is on a 504 Plan, who now currently bikes to school will no longer be able to do so safely to the ‘new’ Junior High school. He said “Let’s face it. It’s just putting lipstick on a pig’ with the ’Corvallis Junior High’ name since it’s the same Linus Pauling building. It doesn’t make any sense to me.” Our 6th grader then questioned me “Because, doesn’t it cost them more money to rename the school and change colors and mascot than to just keep the same mascot, colors, and’ Linus Pauling’ name, when they say they are doing all of this because of lack of money?” I had no answer for him, I told him his logic makes sense to me.
If Cheldelin Middle School and Letitia Carson Elementary School were to close, that would be 2(!!!!) our 3 children affected by consolidation. With the eldest at Crescent Valley also fearful of their school closing as well.
We as a family are greatly affected by this and have talked a lot about consolidation and understand the need for it as this time.
But we implore you to do 3 things to help make things more equitable when considering consolidation of more schools:
-We implore you to look elsewhere for school closures, maybe in higher income neighborhoods and schools such as Timberhill and Northwest Corvallis? Look at who you are affecting and how some might be affected greater than others due to what resources they might have.
-Maybe look at what neighborhoods have already been affected by school closures in the past?
-We implore you try to not only look at the household income of school closures when considering consolidation plans but also look at the racial make up of those neighborhood schools that you will be closing. We minorities are still very fatigued from the fight i of the pandemic…
Consolidation is nothing new. It has happened multiple times in Corvallis school district’s history, it is not an easy thing to do. But you are affecting the most highly vulnerable and often overlooked children and families in the district with your decision making. We who are regularly overlooked will not feel very inclined to vote ‘yes’ for the next school district bond measure that may come up in couple of years. We feel stuck. We feel trapped. We feel used. We would leave this school district if we could, and not due to the high cost of living, not due to low housing stock, but because of these rash decisions that hurt our already disadvantaged children the most. But, if we can ALL work together, maybe we can ensure it is done the best way possible with all voices included.
Please feel free to contact me at sarabiajaimevanessa@gmail.com I am willing to do all that I can to ensure ALL children are entitled to fair opportunities and not just a select few who are hardly ever overlooked and live in neighborhoods that are wealthy.
~ Jaime Sarabia and the Sarabia Family
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