Terre Haute, Indiana47807

 

Dear Dr. Tanoos:
 

In recent weeks, the Board of Directors of Farrington's Grove Historical District, Inc. has become aware of studies on a possible closure of Crawford Elementary School.At our November 5, 2001 meeting, the board unanimously passed a resolution opposing the closing of Crawford School.This letter discusses the reasons for our opposition. We ask that these reasons be considered in the study process and the eventual decision.

 

Some of our members have children attending Crawford.We support them in their desire to have their children attend a small neighborhood school.However, the effects of this potential closing extend far beyond parents and children.This is a neighborhood issue.Closing Crawford directly impacts our ability to achieve each point of our mission.

 

The mission of FGHD, Inc., is to guide and promote the preservation and restoration of the Farrington’s Grove Historical District in order to

·ensure and protect its cultural and architectural integrity

·limit incompatible uses

·encourage community fellowship and neighborhood awareness

·prevent increased population density
 

To implement our mission, the board has designed a program to market the Farrington's Grove Historical District to potential homebuyers with school age children.A principal audience is families relocating to the Terre Haute area to begin employment at Indiana State University and other major local employers.Having a school within walking distance inside the neighborhood is an important selling point with many potential homebuyers.It is an advantage we use to offset some of the perceived advantages of subdivisions and suburban neighborhoods.Crawford School is the only elementary school located within the Farrington's Grove Historical District.Although Farrington Grove School is attended by some children living in the south end of the historical district, it is not located in the district.It is not conveniently located for families in the north end of the district.

 

Our board feels that closing Crawford will have a substantial impact on our efforts to attract homebuyers to maintain or increase the number of single-family residences.We are concerned that the conversion of older homes to student housing and other rental housing will increase population density.Community fellowship will decrease because of the transient nature of these residents.The proliferation of multi-unit housing creates a number of serious neighborhood problems (parking, noise, etc.) to an extent that our board considers it an incompatible use as typically practiced in our district.Although there are exceptions, rental housing typically results in a deterioration of cultural and architectural integrity, as can be observed throughout our district.

 

We also feel that closing Crawford will have a negative impact on the educational experience at Farrington Grove School by increasing enrollment there.One reason our members and other residents chose to live in this neighborhood was the opportunity for our children to attend small neighborhood elementary schools -- as Farrington Grove and especially Crawford currently are.

 

Crawford students and teachers give back to our community.For example, they participate in an “Adopt a Grandparent” program where they visit Anthony Square residents.In another school project, they developed a website on the history of Farrington’s Grove Historical District.These types of interactions would be lost or greatly diminished if Crawford were to close and its students were distributed over a wider area of the city.

 

Although the building is not old compared to most of the neighborhood, it has considerable historical and architectural significance since it was designed by Terre Haute architect Juliet Peddle, the first female registered architect in the state of Indiana. The importance of Miss Peddle is underscored by the American Institute of Architects Indiana, in their naming of a major award in her honor.We believe that the Crawford School has the potential of being placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the future since it was designed by a prominent architect.

 

If Crawford School is closed, the FGHD Board has major concerns about potential institutional uses of the building.As a school, it is an asset to the neighborhood, but an alternative use could bring traffic and congestion problems to a residential area. Our organization has been forced to expend considerable effort in recent years to limit incompatible uses.This limits the ability of our board members, all of whom volunteer their time, to promote positive changes in the district.

 

FGHD, Inc., has contacted several other interested parties, including Historical Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, American Institute of Architects Indiana, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, to inform them of this potential threat to the Farrington's Grove Historical District and Crawford Elementary School.

 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has launched a major initiative to save historic neighborhood schools from threats such as inadequate maintenance, the consolidation of smaller facilities into remote mega-schools, and the mistaken notion that only new schools can provide state-of-the-art learning environments.I have enclosed a copy of their report, "Historic Neighborhood Schools in the Age of Sprawl: Why Johnny Can't Walk to School," and would like to draw your attention especially to the information on pages 10 to 15 describing the interactions between school and community and also the effects on children's independence and physical fitness.

 

Two of the case studies in the report involve Indiana communities -- Kokomo on pages 34-35 and Evansville on page 38.Historic schools in historic neighborhoods can be saved here.Although many of the case studies involve choosing between renovating an older school and building a new school in an outlying area, which is not the case with Crawford School, we are concerned that recent actions by the VCSC are establishing a similar result by attrition -- Warren School two years ago, Crawford now, which school will be next?

 

Our organization is pleased that you want to do what is in the best interest of students in Vigo County. We support your efforts to improve the education of our children.The hard work of teachers and other school personnel is to be admired, but their job is made more difficult when they do not receive adequate support from parents and the community.We have confidence that the school corporation can transport children from our neighborhood to other schools, but we do not understand how this can increase family involvement.Distributing Crawford students among other schools where their families are less able to be involved may further disrupt the learning process for many at-risk students.We are concerned that this will result in a net lowering of student performance including such measurement as average ISTEP scores in Vigo County.

 

Farrington's Grove Historical District, Inc., shares your commitment to improving learning for the young people of Vigo County and especially those attending our neighborhood school, Crawford Elementary.Our board has been and continues to be willing to spend time and resources in conjunction with the school and its PTO.We recently voted to make a monetary grant to the school to be used for any purpose consistent with our group's mission of historic preservation and neighborhood improvement.If there is any other way that FGHD, Inc., can work with the school corporation to improve education at our neighborhood schools -- Crawford, Farrington Grove, and Sarah Scott -- please feel free to contact me or one of our board members.

 

In conclusion, we ask that the points we raised in this letter be carefully considered in studying the issue of whether Crawford School should be closed.Our board strongly opposes the closing of Crawford, and we feel it is important that the interests of the larger community be considered.I would be happy to discuss this issue with you, and especially look forward to discussing ways our organization could work with the school corporation to improve education at Crawford Elementary and our other neighborhood schools.Please feel free to contact me at 877-8385 (day) or 478-2314 (evening).

 

Thank you for your time in considering our interests in Crawford School.

 

Sincerely,

Michael Misovich

President

 

cc:Vigo County School Board

Jan Hawkins, Crawford School

Georgia Mell, Hands Around Crawford

Mick Love, Terre Haute City Council

Cliff Lambert, Terre Haute City Council

George Azar, Terre Haute City Council

Judith Anderson, Mayor, City of Terre Haute

Mark Dollase, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana

J. Reid Williamson, Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana 

Ken Englund, American Institute of Architects Indiana

Robert Nieweg, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Richard Moe, National Trust for Historic Preservation

Sue Loughlin, Terre Haute Tribune-Star

Max Jones, Terre Haute Tribune-Star

Genie Garner, WTHI-TV

Kathy Dash, WTWO-TV