Dismay, worry at schools slated to close

Rashawn Clark, a sophomore at the academy, said the school district was sending a message to students that it was giving up on them.

"It's not like every student in here is doing a bad job,'' Clark said. "Kids in here actually try to do good. If you break apart the school, you're breaking apart the teams, too. I'm on the basketball team, and we're known as a family. We stick together; we go everywhere together, so if you break that up, then we have to go to a different school and start over.''

Clark also said that teachers care about the students; one is taking time out of his schedule to teach him how to swim, he said.

Clarence Mines, a special education teacher in the Hyde Park complex, said the closure would also be a major adjustment for staff.

"We don't like it, but we have to do what we have to do,'' said Mines. "Explaining to the kids that you'll be leaving where you're comfortable is major to them because they're comfortable here. It's definitely a drastic move, but I just work here, and I have to do what I have to do. But I'm upset about it."

In Roxbury, parents of an elementary school on the chopping block expressed shock this morning.

"I didn’t expect this. I’m upset because my daughter really wants to stay at this school,'' Elizangela Maia outside the Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary, on Shirley Street.

Emerson families learned of Johnson's plan Wednesday through a letter sent home with students.

Maia said her 8-year-old daughter, Heliandra Ferreira, was brought to tears over the possibility that she may have to complete fourth and fifth grades elsewhere with different classmates and teachers.

"I don’t see why they can’t help the school more financially,'' said Maia, who attended the K-5 school for fifth grade after her family moved to the neighborhood from Angola. "Don’t close it down. Everybody [in this neighborhood] grew up going to school here. This is basically where we all started.''

In addition to the Emerson and the Social Justice Academy, Johnson proposed closing the Community Academy of Science and Health and the Engineering School, both in Hyde Park; and the Roger Clap Elementary School and the East Zone Early Learning Center, both in Dorchester.

The plan also calls for converting the Patrick Gavin Middle School in South Boston into a district-run charter school and merging the struggling Lee Academy Pilot School with the better performing Joseph Lee Elementary School, both located in the same building on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester.

Tamara Johnson said she has not been impressed with the overall performance of the Emerson, where her daughter is a second-grader.

"I’m happy with her performance," Johnson said of 7-year-old Josette Desvarieux. "But when they give you the statistics overall," like MCAS scores, it's a different story.

Johnson, 33, said that while her daughter excels academically at Emerson, Josette's record is more of a reflection of her hard work and her mother being there to help.

Regardless of whether plans to shutter Emerson move forward or not, Johnson said she is considering enrolling her daughter at a private school next September where Josette can study in a more challenging environment and not have to worry about her school being closed.

"They’ll close these schools now, but in two years, will they close other schools?" asked Johnson.

E-mail John Guilfoil at jguilfoil@globe.com, and Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.