The Tucson Unified School District has prevailed in its effort to expand Borman Elementary into a K-8 campus.
TUSD requested the grade-level expansion late last year, arguing that it loses students once they leave Borman, located on Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, to go to middle school.
Rather than attend TUSD’s Roberts-Naylor K-8 — a few short miles away from the front gate of D-M — most Borman students go to the on-base charter school, Sonoran Science Academy.
U.S. District Judge David Bury, who is overseeing TUSD’s decades-old desegregation case, initially encouraged the district to consider what could be done to make Roberts-Naylor a viable competitor to Sonoran Science Academy.
What the district found, however, was that what Borman parents value is the school’s location, security and familiarity with the specific needs of military families.
Though Bury said he hoped Borman could serve as a source of Anglo students for the racially concentrated Roberts-Naylor, he recognized that was unlikely. That’s a conclusion backed by Willis Hawley, a national desegregation expert tasked with overseeing TUSD’s racial-balance efforts.
According to Hawley, there is a tipping point where students of one race will not choose schools with few or no students who are racially akin to themselves. He suggests that’s the case at Roberts-Naylor, where Anglo students are about 1 in 9.
TUSD is working on how to move forward with the expansion for the upcoming school year, said TUSD spokeswoman Stefanie Boe. Parents who would like the district to contact them with additional information can call the School Choice office at 225-6400.
TUSD’s Student Assignment Committee determined that the expansion would cost $60,000 immediately for the light renovation of two classrooms. A long-term plan to add two classrooms and locker rooms is estimated to cost between $700,000 and $750,000.
Long-term costs could be covered by a future bond, the committee said.
