School closure and program relocation proposals floated by the Seattle Public Schools supe in the past few weeks have included a handful of “co-locations” — in which two or more separate programs would share the same building. (See my most recent story on this here.)
The New York Times had a fascinating article last weekend that looked at how this has worked in other cities, and the issues that arose: How to handle different rules for each school, whether younger students belong in the same building as high-schoolers, how principals share authority, etc.:
“…Neighboring principals debate thorny questions that often seem to require the wisdom of Solomon, or at least a skilled group therapist. Who gets to eat at noon and who is relegated to 9:42 a.m. at Walton High in the Bronx, where interschool scuffles in the cafeteria last year led the five component schools to establish separate lunch periods? How does the principal at the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex in the Chelsea section of Manhattan explain to her students that they cannot wear hats or pop into pizzerias during school hours, as do their peers at the James Baldwin School, on their building’s third floor?”
From the article, it sounds like success depends largely on the personalities of the principals, and whether the staff at the “host” school are open to having another school move into their building.
What do you think?