50 signatures reached
To: Dr. Jermall Wright, and the LRSD school board
Keep Watson Open
The parents and families of Watson Community School ask that the Little Rock School District keep our school open.
Why is this important?
Before Lacey Elementary opened, Watson was one of the district’s larger elementary schools. The community deserves transparency about how the district expected Lacey’s opening and its attendance boundaries to affect Watson.
- When the district established Lacey Elementary’s attendance zone, what enrollment impact did it project for Watson Elementary?
- Watson has reportedly lost more than 100 students since Lacey opened. Did the district anticipate a decline of this magnitude?
- How many students were reassigned from Watson to Lacey—or to another school—because of attendance-zone changes?
- How much of Watson’s enrollment decline resulted from district decisions regarding school boundaries, rather than families independently choosing to leave Watson?
- If the district’s own boundary decisions contributed substantially to Watson’s enrollment decline, how is it fair to use that decline as a justification for closing the school?
Watson should not be penalized for an enrollment decline created or accelerated by district decisions. Before any closure recommendation moves forward, the district must release the enrollment projections, attendance-zone maps, student reassignment data, and impact analyses used when Lacey Elementary was opened.
Our families deserve the full story. Keep Watson Elementary open and invest in the students, programs, educators, and multilingual families who make this school an essential part of our community.
Watson is a community school and the first dual language school in the district.
How it will be delivered
In person / email