TULSA - The community is reacting after Tulsa Public Schools announced at its board meeting on Wednesday how it'll make up for it's $12 million in budget cuts next year.
“I honestly blame everybody. I blame me. I blame you, I blame the state, I blame the city I blame everybody. It is everybody’s problem," said Virginia Dockter-Rollins.
She has two children at Remington Elementary one of the schools the board proposed to close.
“You feel disconnected. Uprooted. You don’t have that anchor. I don’t want my children to have to go through that," she said.
The changes would shut down Remington Elementary, Park Elementary and ECDC Porter, and move all of those students to Clinton Middle School.
Then Clinton Middle School students will all move to Webster High School.
“The biggest concern is just making sure the community understands that we are doing what we can in light of a terrible time," said Webster Principal Shelly Holman.
The district says it's trying to make the best of these unfortunate circumstances.
“We’re not doing this because we woke up one morning and decided to cut 12 million dollars out of our budget. We’re doing this because we don’t have a choice but to deal with the shortfalls in funding that our state has been providing to us for actually many, many years," said TPS Superintendent Dr. Deborah Gist.
She says she feels for the families affected. She apologizes to angry parents for everything they'll have to go through, but says they don't have too many other options."
“Usually when you hit rock bottom you realize that you’ve got to do something dramatic, but that’s not seeming to sink in," she said.
She urges everyone seeking changes to reach out to their legislators because change needs to happen this legislative session.
“It will already take years to recover but if we don’t do something quickly it will take decades," she said.
For anyone with suggestions on how to handle the school consolidations you can email the district at tpsinfo@tulsaschools.org.
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