Before We Decide

A Petition for More Information Before Irreversible Decisions Are Made

Our Request

We ask the Dubuque Community School District Board of Education to delay any vote or other action on the proposed middle-school and grade-configuration changes until the Board has received and publicly reviewed additional information necessary to make a fully informed decision.

Specifically, we ask the Board to:

• Delay final decisions on school closures, permanent grade configurations, and other facility changes related to the current consolidation proposals.

• Provide a complete and transparent financial analysis of each proposal, including:

  • recurring savings and costs;

  • one-time implementation costs;

  • transportation impacts;

  • staffing and benefits;

  • administration and support services;

  • facility, maintenance, and operating costs;

  • Roosevelt expansion and related costs;

  • costs or savings that have not yet been quantified; and

  • the assumptions underlying the projections.

• Evaluate additional alternatives and combinations of strategies, rather than limiting the decision to the three current scenarios, and provide comparable financial and operational information for those alternatives.

• Provide meaningful consideration of input from students, families, teachers, staff, and the broader community, including questions and concerns that have not yet been fully addressed.

• Establish a defined timeline for completing this additional analysis and returning to the Board for a final decision, so that the process is thorough without being indefinite.

  
  

We recognize that the district faces significant financial challenges and that difficult decisions may be necessary. This petition does not ask the Board to commit to keeping or closing any particular school. It asks the Board to ensure that the information, alternatives, costs, and impacts have been sufficiently examined before making decisions that cannot easily be reversed.

By signing this petition, I am asking the Dubuque Community School District Board of Education to delay decisions regarding the district's proposed middle-school and grade-configuration changes until additional financial, operational, student, and community-impact information has been provided and publicly reviewed, additional alternatives have been considered, and a defined timeline for a final decision has been established.