Famous Elementary School; Oddly familiar story

This from Teacher Magazine:

Living History

One educator aims to bring history full circle

by pushing to revive a historic school.

Silence fills the halls and classrooms of Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kan.—the building where the landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education school-segregation case originated.

Despite its historic role in the country's education system, Sumner closed its doors as a school in 1996. Since then it has been used as a storage unit, a police training facility, and an art project for vandals. But now one educator is fighting to reopen the site as an affordable private school.

“Sumner’s the first in integration, and Sumner should be the first in innovation,” Sandra Lassiter, a former Topeka elementary school principal who is spearheading the effort, said in an interview. Lassiter hopes a revamped Sumner will breathe life into what she says is a blighted Topeka neighborhood with one of the highest crime rates in the city.

Lassiter has submitted three charter school proposals to Topeka’s school board since 2007, the last of which was rejected in December over concerns about the soundness of Lassiter’s education plan, community support, and funding, according to a February 2007 article in Topeka’s Capital-Journal.

But Lassiter, who retired from the Topeka district in 2003 on unpleasant terms and subsequently filed a lawsuit claiming she’d been forced to resign, said she believes her checkered history with the district factored into the board’s decision....

Now working on her fourth proposal, Lassiter wants to focus on building a solid education foundation for children with a K-3rd grade private school...

It reminded me that its about time for another open records request.

'Brown V. Board' School May Be Spared

TOPEKA, Kan. -- The Kansas State Historical Society said [recently] it won't allow city officials to demolish the former all-white school that was at the center of the Brown v. Board of Education case.

The Topeka City Council had given preliminary approval...to begin the destruction, but the historical society contends that a 2002 agreement requires the city to preserve the structure until 2012.

To change the building's architectural appearance and structural integrity, the city needs the historical society's permission, said Patrick Zollner, the state agency's director of historic preservation. The covenant, signed by then-Topeka Mayor Butch Felker in 2002, can be amended or released only by mutual written agreement.

"The society would never consent to the demolition of Sumner School," Zollner told The Topeka Capital-Journal on Thursday.

Council and city staff members have said they would like to save the Sumner Elementary School building, but the cost to the city has forced them to consider other options.The art deco building became a symbol of civil rights history when Oliver Brown, a black minister, tried to enroll his daughter in Sumner School in 1950.When the school turned them away, the Browns filed a lawsuit that would eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case.

This from Newsday.com.