WESTMINSTER : 300 Angry Residents Protest School Sale

More than 300 angry residents turned out for a raucous public hearing last week to denounce a Westminster School District proposal to close aging Midway City School and reopen Dr. Jessie Hayden School.

Alleging that board members had already made up their minds to adopt the plan, members of a group called Parents Against Mismanaged Schools (PAMS) threatened legal action if the board approves the plan at its regular meeting this week. District staff members have recommended the closure and sale of Midway City, saying that campus would be $1.5 million more expensive to renovate than Hayden.

“You are denying our children the right to go to their neighborhood school,” said Lori Griffin, who represented PAMS. She called for the district to keep and improve Midway City, at 8521 Hazard Ave., as well as Hayden, which is about four blocks away at 14782 Eden St.

“Once gone, a school is nearly impossible to replace,” Griffin said.

If the board approves the plan, the group plans to seek an injunction to stop the sale of Midway City and enlist the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union to fight the district, Griffin said.

“We feel we have been denied our civil rights,” because the board has already made its decision and was not holding the hearing in good faith, she said. “Our trust in you is totally destroyed. We don’t know how you can justify closing any schools.”

School board members Nancy Blumenthal, Sheryl Neugebauer and Margie Rice vigorously denied that the board had already decided in favor of the Midway City closure.

Other residents complained that their children would have to walk farther to school and contended that there would be no need to close Midway City if it had been better maintained.

Superintendent Gail Wickstrom has recommended that the district modernize Hayden at a cost of $1.3 million. The school would reopen in June of 1993, when Midway City would close and be declared excess property.

The sale of the property would bring in an expected $3 million, which would be used to modernize and refurbish other school sites in the district.

Hayden, built in 1961, is in much better condition than the aging Midway City campus and would be less expensive to renovate, Wickstrom said.

Midway City was built in 1950 and would require major renovation to keep it usable. Hayden has been closed since 1978, when the board decided to shift its students to Midway City School.

The board is expected to make its decision on the plan at its regular meeting Thursday. The district board room is at 14121 Cedarwood Ave., Westminster.