Schools candidate opposed to closures

Winston Brooks,the fourth finalist, will be in town Thursday

By Jim Redden

The Portland Tribune, Apr 9, 2002, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The latest finalist for superintendent of Portland schools has some advice for the school board Ñ think twice about closing schools to save money.

The Portland school board has voted to close Youngson and Wilcox elementary schools in the fall to help close a projected $36 million budget shortfall caused, in part, by expected cuts in the state education budget.

But Winston Brooks, superintendent of the Wichita, Kan., school district, says the closures might not be worth it.

“I’m not convinced that school closures actually save as much money as projected because the students still have to be taught somewhere, and teacher salaries are 85 percent of total school costs,” Brooks told the Portland Tribune.

“Beyond that, there’s the harm caused to the neighborhoods where the schools are located. Schools are important to neighborhoods, and I’m a neighborhood person.”

The 49-year-old Brooks visited Portland on March 30 for a private interview with the school board. He is returning this week for a series of additional meetings with board members, teachers and community leaders.

Karla Wenzel, vice chairwoman of the Portland school board, says she and other board members were impressed with Brooks’ record of closing the achievement gap between white and minority students.

Brooks has been superintendent of the Wichita school district since 1998. He worked for the district for 11 years before that, serving as personnel director and chief labor negotiator.

He has been praised for winning public support for a $284.5 million capital construction bond, closing the achievement gap for low-income and minority students, and raising test scores overall. He also has been responsible for the education of about 11,000 post-secondary students in the Wichita Area Technical College.

Brooks was named the 2002 Kansas Superintendent of the Year and received the NAACP Community Service Award in 1999.

“It seems to me what Portland is looking for is someone who’s a community booster, someone who can collaborate with all the interest groups and someone who can give the district a shot in the arm,” said Brooks, who says he accomplished the same things in Wichita.

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