Ecstatic. That’s how Sandy Chrapko felt when Akron Public Schools first announced plans to build a new Pfeiffer Elementary and Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts in the heart of the Kenmore neighborhood.
Now, with news about a $10 million projected budget shortfall percolating through the community and debates about how to move forward with the project ongoing at the Board of Education, she feels much differently.
“Completely heartbroken and terrified,” Chrapko told Signal Akron. “Because where is my child gonna go? What kind of environment is he going to be placed into?”
Her son, Jax, has been at Pfeiffer for four years. He followed his big sister into the neighborhood school and couldn’t be happier there. He loves math and his teachers.
Jax, like the vast majority of the students at the more than century old Pfeiffer Elementary, walks to school. If the Board of Education decides to close Pfeiffer and send the kids elsewhere, he may have to walk down Waterloo or Manchester roads to his new building. He’s too close to be bused, but too far for his mom to feel comfortable sending him alone to walk.
“There’s nothing left, they’re taking everything from Kenmore,” Chrapko said. “We passed the levy, and we’ve trusted the school board, and they’re letting us down.”
Pop-up protesters challenge school board’s ‘waffling’
Her sentiments appeared to be shared by about 60 parents, staffers and students who participated in a pop-up protest organized by a longtime school lunch lady and family liaison at the school.
Alexis Desure, the mother of three Pfeiffer students who took turns rolling down the hill, holding signs and shouting “Save our school!,” said the building is less of a school and more like a family.
“We all know each other,” Desure said. “All of our kids know each other.”
The building, and especially the playground, is a second home to her kids, BriElla, Cori and Aailayah. She lives a few houses down and feels comfortable letting her children walk to school and spend summer days on the slides and in the large gated grass area.
In fact, Desure credits Shanan Painter, the school’s family liaison and one of the protest’s organizers, for giving her kids “half a Christmas” this past year. That’s why she objects to what she called the board’s waffling on its earlier promises.
“We’re stronger together, and you’re trying to break something that can’t be broken,” Desure said. “And we’re gonna fight like heck.”
Painter has lived in Kenmore all her life and volunteered at Pfeiffer Elementary for more than 20 years. Now, she’s paid to work there and “be a mom to 200 kids.”
She may be out of a job if Pfeiffer is shut down, but more importantly, she knows the community will be hurt if the neighborhood loses another school. Kenmore has been in the midst of a revitalization for years, and she worries about those efforts if the district breaks its promise.
“I think people would give up,” Painter said. “It would make things way worse. And I think people would be defeated.”
Being the school mom to the students at Pfeiffer Elementary has given her an inside look at their reactions. She said they can tell the students feel what the teachers feel — distraught, somber, worried. It has put a damper on the typically jubilant end-of-year celebrations.
“Field Day today, it wasn’t as loud and crazy as it usually is,” Painter said. “Because kids are kind of somber right now and because, of course, they’re feeling it from us.”