Welcome!
West Linn-Wilsonville's Small Schools Alliance
Welcome to the Small Schools Alliance, a group of community members who want to better understand why our school district is in the position of considering closing schools, how we got here and to explore realistic solutions while balancing fiscal and human costs.
We have concerns with the WLWV School Board process that will lead to the decision for school closures in January 2025.
The timing is rushed and excludes anyone who cannot rearrange their schedules in the coming weeks.
The research questions the Small Schools Task Force will be given by the Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) are only in support of closing schools. The Small Schools Task Force is not able to research how to keep our schools open with fiscal responsibility.
The process has potential for bias. The Small Schools Task Force (as directed by the LRPC and overseen by the school board) is only able to research the cons of small schools which they will give to the LRPC. The LRPC will then make recommendations to the School Board who will vote to close schools. We’d like for the Small Schools Task Force to be allowed to give their own recommendations to the board, not have their research interpreted by the LRPC.
The first priority, as we see it, is to slow the school closure decision process down to allow for careful deliberation. The school board has allotted only three months to 12 citizen parents to gather information and digest it for a decision that has long reaching implications.
In order to do that, we need to show the board that community members care.
We have this petition you can sign and share with district friends and neighbors that ask for the Small Schools Task Force to be allowed more time. This is valuable to all voting district members as the Board will not release any information about potential impacts to all schools until after their decision to close, so they are asking us to trust them on staffing promises. Nor have they indicated they will seek community input in their decision making (their community meetings appear to be informational updates on the Small Schools Task Force’s research), therefore, it is imperative that we come to them with our requests.
Together we can make a difference! Let’s make some noise!