Group wants South Bend board to vote against CTE Hub plans, keep Coquillard Elementary

SOUTH BEND — A local organization is calling for the South Bend school board to vote against establishing a Career & Technical Education (CTE) Hub at Coquillard Elementary School, saying doing so would violate the district’s federally-mandated consent decree.

Instead, they want the proposed $10.5 million required to open the center to be repurposed and invested in Coquillard, keeping it an elementary school.

During a press conference held Monday afternoon on Zoom, representatives of the Save the Youth – Michiana Campaign, Black Lives Matter South Bend and the local NAACP chapter said relocating the predominantly Black and Brown students at Coquillard would not only be harmful to their social and educational wellbeing, but it goes against the consent decree.

CTE Hub proposal background

During a public work session on Nov. 20, officials from the South Bend Community School Corp. (SBCSC) presented their proposed plan, which would provide a centralized home for some of the district’s CTE programs. Currently, these programs are housed across all three of SBCSC’s high schools.

The Hub would also be opened to students from 11 other public, charter and traditional public school districts across St. Joseph County.

Community, district perspectives: South Bend school officials name school they want to make CTE hub

After considering several other buildings, the administrators said they found Coquillard best fit their criteria for transportation and location within St. Joseph County. District officials said they are considering opening the Hub at Coquillard, relocating the elementary students there to Dickinson Intermediate Fine Arts Academy and incurring an estimated $10.5 million in renovation costs.

Perspectives from Save the Youth

During Monday’s press conference, community members and representatives of Save the Youth – Michiana Campaign and other organizations outlined their concerns about the district’s proposed plan, citing perceived pre-existing dipartites that would be exacerbated by the change.

Tiana Batiste-Waddell, executive director of the JAX Aspire Foundation, said SBCSC’s plan to close Coquillard Elementary is in violation of the consent decree, and she added that the district did not involve the U.S. Department of Justice or the South Bend community itself in its early planning.

“There’s unforeseen impacts when you close a school in a community, with the largest being the enabling of intergenerational poverty,” she said. “The corporation needs to invest in Coquillard Elementary School, as well as other elementary schools across the district that educate Black students.”

Oletha Jones, a former SBCSC board member and education chairperson for the South Bend NAACP chapter, said students at Coquillard have already been through a significant amount of change, such as the creation and subsequent dissolution of the Empowerment Zone.

“We don’t even know how these … students have adopted and navigated all of those changes, but now they’re proposing to further disrupt by closing the school,” she said. “… This is not only poor planning, in our opinion — this is abuse.”

Dé Bryant, co-founder of South Bend’s Black Lives Matter organization, added that the district’s “history of disproportionate rates of disciplinary actions” will prevent an unbalanced number of Black students from enrolling in CTE programs.

This means, she said, that few of these students will be admitted to the proposed CTE Hub.

“This entire situation puts students at risk of not being successful, despite the pretty words that are a part of the announcement related to the CTE and the Career Hub,” Bryant said.

Former South Bend councilmember Henry Davis Jr. said that the school district needs to involve the South Bend Common Council in the planning, because closing Coquillard to open a CTE Hub will impact the area’s property values and taxes.

Bill Sniadecki, who will be serving as a SBCSC board trustee beginning in January, said he is “totally against” the plan and does not “want to destroy another school.” He had previously said during the Nov. 20 work session that he wants the vote to be tabled until after the new board convenes next month.

As the schedule stands, the school board will host a second public work session at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2, at Coquillard. This session will also be broadcast live and recorded on SBCSC’s YouTube channel.

The district is scheduled to formally present its proposed plan to the board during the next meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 4.

Email South Bend Tribune education reporter Rayleigh Deaton at rdeaton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Local group calls for SBCSC board to vote against CTE Hub

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