When Warsaw School Board holds its monthly meeting at Atwood Elementary School Monday, chances are a lot of Silver Lake parents and patrons will be there as well.

At issue for both communities is their belief that the school board wants to close Atwood and Silver Lake schools, two of the oldest schools in the corporation. (Atwood is approximately 91 years old and Silver Lake was built in 1930.)

Atwood, Silver Lake and Claypool Elementary also are the three lowest-enrollment schools in the corporation: As of Oct. 31, Atwood's enrollment was 119, Claypool's was 160 and Silver Lake's was 164.

According to school board president Craig Allebach, the board has not yet made a decision on closing any school and won't until they get the results of a study on the issue. The study should be done by June.

"People are upset," Allebach said, "because the Community-Based Planning Project talked about relocating Silver Lake and Atwood students."

The school board met at Silver Lake Elementary in November and heard patrons and parents describe how the school is the center of the community and how going to a small school is advantageous to students.

Those parents are not alone in their beliefs.

"A school is too big when all of the teachers cannot recognize all of the children," said Dr. Marcia Sheridan, professor of education at Indiana University - South Bend and an authority on school size and the future of public education.

"A safe, caring environment is one factor that effective schools have in common. How can you care about somebody you don't know? I think in an elementary school it's even more important that people notice who they are," she said.

Allebach said he knows many people in the Silver Lake and Atwood communities believe the schools will be closed because it would be easier financially for the school corporation.

"They think it's all a monetary thing, and it's a lot more than that," he said. "I look at it as opportunity. ... The greater thing is opportunity for their kids and opportunity throughout the district that currently can't be provided in terms of staff and facilities."

Finances, said Sheridan, shouldn't be the only consideration.

"It shouldn't be just a money issue, that they can save money by consolidating," she said. "It's not just a matter of money. What we're talking about is children in education and maintaining the quality of that education."

The possibility of consolidating Silver Lake's students with those in Claypool or Atwood is an alternative opposed by patrons and by Dr. Dan Lapsley, chairman of the department of educational psychology at Ball State University.

"I tend to see consolidation mostly at the higher grades - I see lots of middle schools feeding into one large high school," he said. "I think that is deplorable. I applaud the smaller, local school."

Allebach, too, is not necessarily in favor of consolidation.

"I would be against moving Silver Lake into Claypool," he said. "I don't think that's a good deal. I don't see that that's an improvement."

What other options are there?

Silver Lake, Atwood and Claypool elementaries may find themselves going the way of Mary Phillips Elementary in Mishawaka.

According to Emery Petko, director of buildings and grounds for Mishawaka schools, Phillips, a neighborhood school built in 1936, was closed in 1999, and the students were moved to a new school building - Liberty Elementary. Also attending Liberty are former students of North Side Elementary, which also was closed, Petko said.

Liberty's enrollment is approximately 450 students; Phillips had about 260 students, Petko said.

He said Phillips and North Side could have been renovated, which would have included updating their heating systems and adding air conditioning, "but we got to the point where a new school would provide better educational opportunities for kids."

Allebach said nothing has yet been ruled out.

"We don't know what the options are - whether we're gonna add on, renovate or tear down," he said. "We also need to consider what it would cost to do those options and how it would be financed."

Some building upgrades already have taken place. In 1998-99, air conditioning was installed in all three schools, at an approximate cost, according to Rande Thorpe, WCS business manager, of $30,000 for Atwood, $35,000 for Silver Lake and $300,000 for Claypool. The air conditioning systems for Silver Lake and Atwood are mostly window units.

Petko said the cost of the new Liberty School was approximately $8 million, a cost he said would have been exceeded if the school corporation had chosen to renovate Phillips and North Side.

Still, he said, Liberty, like the two previous schools, remains a neighborhood school, with the majority of students able to walk or ride bicycles to school.

Keeping a school in its community is what's important, Lapsley said.

"What the local community school does is increase the linkage between parent, home and school. ... When you bus kids out of neighborhoods to school, you lessen the commitment between neighborhood, family and school," he said.

Whatever decision is eventually reached, Allebach said, it will take into consideration all the students in Warsaw Community Schools.

"Somewhere along the line a decision's gotta be made," he said. "Are you really doing what's right by the students or are you doing what mom and dad want to see? We've gotta worry about Leesburg as well as Silver Lake. If we've got inefficiencies, then the taxpayers gotta pay for those inefficiencies." [[In-content Ad]]