One minute Marana Unified School District’s Thornydale Elementary was closed, ending 48 years of history from the district’s first school on the west side of Interstate 10.
The next moment, the school was resurrected.
In front of an audience of about 200 community members, many of them wearing shirts reading #SaveThornydale, the Marana Unified School District Governing Board on Thursday voted 3-1 to close the school.
Parents erupted, shouting “vote them out.”
“You just killed a tradition and a legacy on the northwest side,” Tim Wilson, a Thornydale graduate with kids in Thornydale yelled out to the Governing Board after the vote.
About a minute later, MUSD Board Member Suzanne Hopkins, who had seconded the motion to close the school, mumbled something to her colleagues inaudible to the audience, and the motion to close the school was declared dead, in a deadlocked 2-2 vote.
“OK. Good job. Love you guys,” Wilson hollered after the vote changed.
Hopkins wouldn’t answer questions after the vote, and rushed off to the staff area though a door guarded by a police officer. She didn’t respond to emails to two separate addresses or a call Friday.
MUSD Superintendent Doug Wilson had proposed closing Thornydale, citing declining enrollment at the school, which was built to serve about 600 students, but only has about 300 now.
Governing Board member Dan Post argued against it, saying the district didn’t have a plan for what to do with the closed school and he thought that if given a chance, the school might be able to increase enrollment. He argued the aging neighborhood is turning around, new families are moving in, and the school should be given a two-year period to get its numbers up.
“If it was 'let’s close the school and here’s what we’re going to do with it,' we could have evaluated that recommendation. But just to cold shut the school down but we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to do with it, I didn’t think that was fair,” Post said.
He noted the closure propoals was designed to save the district money because of dwindling education funding from the state. But closing the school would send students out of the district, which would be a step in the wrong direction.
“The only way to make up that money is to add kids,” he said.
Post noted it was tough to go against the superintendent’s recommendation, but said it was the right thing to do and praised Hopkins for ultimately making the right decision.
Stephanie Storin, a Thornydale graduate and parent of a second-grader currently at the school and a high school junior who graduated from the school, noted she actually lives outside the district, but open enrolls her kids there because she loves her alma mater. At one point, she was driving 45 minutes each way to get her eldest daughter to Thornydale, she said.
“That was a lot of driving, but that’s how much we believe in Thornydale. The education, the community, everyone says it but it’s true: You can’t replace this community,” she said.
If the school had closed, she would have homeschooled her second-grader rather than transfer to another MUSD school, she said.
Storin said Thornydale is worth saving because educators there go the extra mile to provide an education that fits the individualized needs of its students. She said teachers there pushed her oldest daughter, who was in the gifted program, while also offering additional support her youngest, who struggles with reading.
Storin grew up in the neighborhood, and said after years of watching the population grow older and send their kids off to college, the neighborhood has turned a corner and is on the rebound, as a younger population is moving in.
“They have so many kindergarten students that they had to add a third kindergarten teacher. Those kids are going to keep going. And more kids are moving into the neighborhood. Enrollment is going to go up,” she said.
Governing Board members Tom Carlson and Maribel Lopez voted to close the school. Board member John Lewandowski was absent.
