School chief seeks to reorganize

4 to 6 closings are part of plan

NO EASY PLAN Johnson said, "These are tough choices, but everyone recognizes we are living in challenging economic times."

Several Boston elementary schools will be on the chopping block tonight, as Superintendent Carol R. Johnson unveils a plan to reconfigure the schools and expand quality at a time of ever-worsening budget troubles.

The plan - one of the first tests of the superintendent as she enters her second year in charge - is designed to address a 7 percent decline in enrollment over the past five years, which has left nearly 8,000 empty seats in grades kindergarten through 8, and to allow the district to expand successful schools.

The closing of four to six schools, along with other changes, would be the largest reorganization since the 2002-03 school year, when then-Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant and the School Committee decided to close six elementary and middle schools in Brighton, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and West Roxbury - causing a furor among staff and families.

The superintendent will present her plan at a School Committee meeting at 6 tonight at School Department headquarters on Court Street.

"These are tough choices, but everyone recognizes we are living in challenging economic times," said Johnson in an interview last night. "Boston is a city that exists in a highly competitive education market. . . . We want to make sure BPS is every parent's first choice."

Johnson declined to divulge which schools would close. Decisions will be based on such factors as academic performance, popularity of schools among parents, and building conditions.

The school system is under a City Hall edict to cut millions of dollars in spending as the district faces escalating costs of salaries, health insurance, fuel, and food. State and federal aid has also failed to keep pace with inflation, and that situation could worsen.

Development of tonight's plan came after City Hall gave the district nearly $20 million earlier this year in additional funding to balance this year's and last year's school budgets - the kind of bailout the district cannot bank on in the future.

Boston, like other districts statewide, is bracing for potential emergency cuts in state aid in the coming months because of the Wall Street credit crisis. And as the district prepares next school year's budget, the Boston Municipal Research Bureau said yesterday the district will likely need to come up with another approximately $23 million just to cover anticipated contractual pay raises. This year's school budget is about $832 million.

"The questions for me are - will the savings of her plan be enough, or will they have to go back to the drawing board to do more?" said Samuel R. Tyler, the research bureau's president.

Johnson declined to release any cost estimates of her plan, which she said will include some one-time expenditures to expand or relocate programs.

Johnson is tackling the challenge as she attempts to execute her own academic overhaul of the system.

The goal is to vastly boost the district's graduation rate, which hovers around 60 percent, by introducing an assortment of new programs to help underachieving students while providing students with more academic consistency by allowing students to attend schools with expanded grade levels.

Between five and eight new K-8 schools will likely be added by expanding existing schools or merging an elementary and middle school, Johnson said. Her recommendations also include some new pilot schools to give administrators more autonomy to execute innovative programs. She said the Boston Teachers Union will start its own pilot school next year, while she'll support the desire of the Harbor Middle School to expand to grade 12 and for the Mary K. Lyons K-8 School to add a high school, which would be a pilot school.

Absent from the plan will be a major overhaul of the district's desegregation-era busing system, even though Mayor Thomas M. Menino has instructed her to trim that budget.

Johnson said that issue will be addressed in a separate plan.

James Vaznis can be reached at jvaznis@globe.com.