As the Lincoln Board of Education ponders closing two schools, we posed to board members and district staff questions and concerns raised by readers of JournalStar.com.

The board’s planning committee proposed closing Hawthorne Elementary, 300 S. 48th St., and Dawes Middle School, 5130 Colfax Ave.

The proposals are the result of the committee’s efforts this summer to redraw attendance area boundary maps.

Board members Ed Zimmer and Keith Prettyman, and LPS Superintendent Susan Gourley and associate superintendent for business affairs Denny Van Horn sat down with the Journal Star to answer readers’ questions, as well as a couple of our own.

(Note: Readers’ names given are those they used to identify themselves while leaving comments on JournalStar.com.)

Journal Star: Why did the school board decide to redraw the district’s attendance boundary maps now, rather than before the $250 million bond election in 2006? (The bond issue is funding three new schools, the replacement of another and renovations to other buildings.)

Zimmer: If the board had drawn attendance maps before the election, it would have had to decide where to put students, despite lacking classroom space for those students.

“If you go out and say, ‘Here’s how bad the world will look if you don’t approve this,’ you’re kind of overemphasizing the needs side but you’re doing it in a way that it sounds like you’re out there just trying to scare people. And then they don’t trust you and they maybe shouldn’t. … I think we did it in the right order.”

Glad to be gone wrote: Closing schools and, presumably, laying off teachers is being considered while top LPS administration gets big pay raises? Disgusting!

Gourley: “Under these proposals, there will be no loss of jobs for teachers or other staff.”

Prettyman: “We’re opening new schools. We’re going to need administrators for those schools. … The people that are there (at Dawes and Hawthorne) are known commodities. We want to keep them.”

Frustrated and confused wrote: My child is scheduled to attend Dawes as a sixth-grader this fall. As the majority of her classmates from her fifth-grade class either live in the Mickle district, or have been opted in, I also investigated this option. My request to opt my child into Mickle was turned down. … The reason? Overcrowding at Mickle. So a new solution would be to close Dawes?

Zimmer: “The information they need so they won’t be frustrated and confused is we’re making additions at Mickle. They’re not ready yet, so we don’t have room at Mickle. We’re making them because it is overcrowded at Mickle, has been for years. When the construction at Mickle is done, we then have the capacity to serve the children that have been going there and a little growth besides. The same will be true at Culler.”

Plubius wrote: Have test scores been looked at? In order to maintain the illusion of excellence, close schools where test scores are low and transfer them to schools where the scores are higher.

Gourley: “We have really outstanding teachers, quality staff there (at Dawes and Hawthorne), and they have provided quality education, and the students’ academic achievement reflects that. On behalf of my colleagues and the staff at those schools, I take offense to that.”

R. Ality Check wrote: LPS has known for sometime that Hawthorne should be closed. … Four years ago, Hawthorne had a whole floor vacant because of low enrollment. LPS knew when they asked the voters for $250 million.

Zimmer: “There’s been no mystery Hawthorne has had low enrollment. … The misimpression that we’ve had to correct up until now is that we already planned to close it. … That decision wasn’t made a couple of years ago. It isn’t made yet. It will be made in October, presumably.”

unsure wrote: If the public isn’t listened to and the board closes these buildings, how about using them as temporary schools, instead of paying rent somewhere else, while some of the existing schools are being redone? Maybe that will save money.

Prettyman: “We have leases for buildings to be used in that way already. We would have to break those leases in order to use those buildings in that way. What concerns me about the way in which that particular comment is worded is that we would not be listening to the public if, ultimately, we would close those two attendance areas, and I don’t believe that to be true.”

Journal Star: If you were to keep Dawes open, where would you find the students necessary to keep it operating as a viable middle school?

Zimmer: “If we kept Dawes open, we might want to ensure a higher number. We might consider changing transfer policy. … To adopt a policy districtwide because of the problems of one school seems very contrary. To adopt a policy for one neighborhood only that isn’t the same policy used everywhere else is very contrary to the way the board has tried to operate and the way the district has tried to operate.”

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.