Wednesday, January 18, 2006

School Board: "Thanks but no thanks"

Citizen-led effort to build a Southwest City community center hits roadblock as city school board rejects offer to purchase Nottingham School. There are no plans for an alternative location, Journal reports.

2 comments:

Joe said...

"well, duh!" is all I have to say on this one.

There's so many other properties for sale owned by SLPS -- Windsor and Gardenville, for example, aren't far away -- that could be acquired by this group if their true goal was to provide a facility for everybody.

But, no, their real objective is to get rid of the public school presence in posh St. Louis Hills.

And Nottingham CAJT is a small school - something we supposedly want to promote - that serves a very specific population
("students with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities").

Admittedly, Gardenville would be problematic in some ways, but it's only about 4 blocks outside the 16th ward, and much more accessible to the community at large given its high-visibility location on several bus lines and its history as a (rather under-funded) former community center. Sure, it would be harder to get support to expand this proposal to cover both the 16th and the 12th wards, but that would be a better way to go if they really want to acquire an SLPS facility for this purpose.

Anonymous said...

A rec center at the intersection of Kingshighway and Gravois would definitely be far more accessible than one at Nottingham and Tamm.

But as Joe points out, that wouldn't be inside the Posh Hills. And the Posh Hills aren't trying to build a center for everyone, just a country club for themselves.