Built Here. Belong Here.
My daughter is at Birch.
The staff there and her friends are some of the only consistent people she’s got. I’m not going to stand up and pretend a chart matters more than that.
On August 25 the district put Birch on the list. Close it. Merge everyone into Kohl. Fall 2027 if the Board says yes on September 22. September 8 is when they hear from people. That’s the clock.
I get why they’re looking at enrollment. I do. They’ve been tracking the drop since 2022. It’s on their own site. What I don’t get is the order they did this in.
Same window voters passed the bond. Same window the Board signed Birch construction contracts last November. Their bond page still has Birch in Phase 3 at over a million dollars. People paid higher taxes for that. Now the plan is to empty the building in 2027, and on August 25 staff said there isn’t even a recommendation yet for what happens to it. Spend the money first. Explain the empty school later. That part sits wrong with me.
Birch has ICAN. Intensive Center for Affective Needs. It’s on the school’s special ed page, not something I invented. Kids with IEPs. A team that already knows them. The August 25 plan just moves that program to Kohl. For those kids stability is the whole point of the program. You don’t get to call it support and then break the thing that was holding them.
Moving a school is not just a building change. Routines go. Known adults go. Teachers who are already carrying a lot get another pile of it. My daughter does not care about utilization. She cares that the people who know her are still there.
I’m not asking anybody to ignore the numbers. I’m asking them not to treat the kids already in the building like leftover business. If they vote to consolidate anyway, then do the family support part like they mean it. Real transition help. Especially ICAN. Don’t dump sloppy boundaries on the same families. And put the facility scores and capacity numbers from August 25 out in public, not only in the slide deck.
That’s the speech.
The shirt is shorter.
Built here. Belong here. Support Birch Elementary.
It’s for parents who want something on their chest at the meeting or in the pickup line without having to give a speech in the cereal aisle. I made it because some people will help if you give them a simple way to show it.
If you want to do something useful:
Show up September 8. Vote is September 22. Sign up for public comment on the district’s declining enrollment page.
Write the Board. Keep it short. Say Birch. Say ICAN. Say the bond money already went into that building. Ask what they plan to do with it after they empty it.
Talk to Kohl families like neighbors, not opponents. They’re getting a whole second school dropped on them.
Wear the shirt if you want. Don’t if you don’t. A shirt doesn’t flip a vote. It just makes it harder to pretend nobody from Birch showed up.
The kids in that building should not be quieter than the spreadsheet.
Lucus Garcia
Birch parent