By Christina M. Wright, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
ELWOOD — Elwood Superintendant Thomas Austin recommended Thursday that the school system close Elwood Community Middle School as a way to reduce a budgetary shortfall, as well as approve a school tax be suggested to voters.
“I think we have great facilities for a community our size, but we no longer have that many kids,” Austin said of the enrollment decline of nearly 30 percent over the past 23 years.
During Tuesday night’s school board meeting at Edgewood Elementary School in Elwood, Austin said closing the middle school and shuffling the students to the two elementary schools and high school was the best of three options he and consultants reviewed to help close a $3 million budget gap.
“Never in my history did I ever think that this district would ever face this type of shortfall,” Austin told the audience.
The plan would call for pre-kindergarten through second graders to be housed at Oakland Elementary Schools, third- through sixth-graders to be housed at Edgewood Elementary School and seventh- through 12th-graders to be housed at Elwood High School.
The reconfiguration would save the school system about $276,000 in operating costs, Austin said. He asked the board to make a decision to fully accept, fully reject or amend his recommendation by Thursday’s executive session.
The medium-sized audience in the school’s gymnasium had no questions about the tax rates, but pounded Austin with an hour’s worth of questions, concerns and comments.
Among the concerns were what would happen to extracurricular activities, whether the science labs at Edgewood are adequate, and the children’s transition.
AJ Durham said her now-fifth grader is struggling to make the transition to middle school.
But Becky Capps, a parent of a sixth-grader and a ninth-grader, said children are flexible.
“Kids adjust,” she said. “They already adjust, from fifth grade to sixth grade, from eighth grade to ninth grade.”
Elwood is one of many public school systems nationwide struggling with budget shortages, as the economy slowly recovers from a recession and slashed state funding.
Austin said the Indiana state legislature threw one more curveball at the end of their session last week. A special vote on the proposed school tax rate won’t be in July as planned; it will be on the November ballot.
Details of just how classes will be arranged at the schools and how much the middle school will be utilized for recreational activities have not yet been ironed out, Austin said. But they will be by time school begins, he promised.
Not even the middle school’s assistant principal, David Retherford, knows where or what his job will be next year, but he said it’s a necessary change.
“It’s a building,” he said of whatever school must close. “A building doesn’t make the school. We have great kids and, in August – no matter where we’re at – we’re going to be educating kids.”
Contact Christina M. Wright, 640-4883, christina.wright@heraldbulletin.com.
