Tulsa Public Schools releases three options for consolidating the district.  The district could close up to 17 schools under one of the options.  Superintendent Dr. Keith Ballard says there are too many empty seats and too few students enrolled in some of the district’s schools.  The district says there are more than 10,000 empty seats.

“I think it is kind of hard to be efficient when you have half-filled classrooms and or empty cavernous hallways that you are heating and cooling and the students aren’t there. I have come to the belief that we are just spread too thin to be effective,” says Ballard.

All three options proposed by the district would close between 10 to 15 elementary schools.  There are 7 schools on all three closure lists: Addams, Barnard, Burroughs, Cherokee, Phillips, Sandburg, and Whitman.  Plan ‘C’ considers closing Nimitz Middle School and Central High School.  All three options would also change grade configurations throughout the district at different schools.  Some changes might put pre-k through 6th grade or 7th through 12th in a school.

The three plans proposed by the district would eliminate between 5,911 and 7,914 seats and would save between $6.1 million and $9.5 million.

“None of these are the final plan.  Frankly, I do not know what the final plan is yet, not at all.  The goal today- generate conversation, community input.  If we don't have total community input and involvement on this then it will absolutely not succeed," says Ballard.  He adds he started considering consolidation after the district lost $20 million dollars in funding last year and had to cut 225 teaching positions.

Ballard says a series of public forums will begin next Tuesday.  "So where all this ends up, I don't know.  I don't know where it is going to end up.  I really want to hear, right now, what parents and community members have to say before there is a final determination made.  One thing is perfectly clear this morning, there is no one perfect solution that is why it is critical we throw this out for public discussion," says Ballard.

The hope is to present a final plan to the Tulsa School Board in May and to have the changes begin for the 2011-2012 school year.