Listen up taxpayers! Miami-Dade School administrators have put our kids at risk. No, not of failing, but of their school toppling on their heads. We're talking little kids. Six year olds.
How else to explain the sudden closing of North Miami Middle School and moving of kids from the North Dade Center for Modern Languages to temporary buildings. Parents last night emoted. Some kept their children home today. It's an outrage.
My kids -- now ages 9 and 12 -- have attended the Modern Language school for the last four years. The teachers are astoundingly great and made the transition this morning to temporary classrooms smooth. Principal Maria Castaigne has molded an amazing place that consistently scores among the best in the county in a troubled neighborhood with many underprivileged families.
So the state gave the school an extra week to get ready for FCATs. At a meeting last night, angry parents demanded to know why this was missed and signed a petition to ask for a greater delay of FCATs. Almost everyone there was black. It made me wonder whether race has something to do with this. Other top-scoring magnet schools, like Ada Merritt Elementary, that are more diverse certainly don't have these problems.
The school board should hire an outside investigator to look into why this was missed for so long. The buildings that were suddenly closed down yesterday were built in 1957. A new school on the site is planned to open in 2012.
If the board wasn't looking at structural problems at this school -- how many other buildings are at risk?
