If the parents who attended Thursday's meeting at Jefferson Elementary are any indication, patrons of at least one of the Warsaw schools slated for closing will back the proposed plan.

Approximately 40 parents of Jefferson students attended the PTO meeting at which Superintendent Dr. Dave McGuire explained his proposed plan to close four elementaries and build two.

Jefferson would be one of the schools to close, along with Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake elementaries. McGuire proposed to the school board Monday that they close the four small elementaries and build two new four-section schools.

After they were reassured by McGuire that the current staff and administration at Jefferson would move to the new large school, and that all the current students at Jefferson would stay at Jefferson, parents spoke in favor of McGuire's proposal.

"We'll go where Denny goes," said one father, referring to Jefferson principal Denny Duncan.

McGuire said he has talked to Grace College President Dr. Ron Manahan about trading the Jefferson property for Grace's practice soccer fields, where the new school could be built, but that no commitment has yet been made.

However, he said, "I'm pinning a lot of my hopes on the Grace site."

If that area is not suitable once the ground is inspected by engineers, McGuire said, "there are other areas very close that I think are available," and cited the proximinty to the upcoming bike trail as an advantage.

Mark Minatel, the Warsaw School Board member who represents Winona Lake, said at first he opposed the idea of closing Jefferson, but there will probably be enough votes on the board to close the four schools, he said, and that may result in a new Jefferson Elementary building.

He also said there will probably be a remonstrance by patrons of the Claypool and Silver Lake schools, but that Jefferson parents could conceivably get more votes to stop the remonstrance.

The alternative to the close-four-build-two proposal, McGuire said, is to close the three smaller schools, leave Jefferson open and move the sixth grades in all schools to the two middle schools.

"That would probably save more money, but it's not as good for kids and wouldn't address the aging schools," he said.

McGuire said Monday that it would cost approximately $30 million to build the two new schools. Thursday, he said it would probably cost more than that - at least $31 million.

He said that closing the four small elementaries and building two new ones would save approximately $200,000 per year, and "$200,000 is four classroom teachers."

Parents at the meeting opposed the idea of sixth-graders going to the middle schools.

"I don't want my sixth-grader in the same school with seventh- and eighth-graders," said one mother.

Ron Yeiter, a school board member who had proposed the middle school solution, said his proposal was for all the sixth-graders to move to Edgewood Middle School and all seventh- and eighth-graders to be at Lakeview.

After talk of how Jefferson patrons could defeat a remonstrance, Yeiter also warned against taking an "us versus them" approach.

"I hate to have this construed as a we-they thing," he said. "Put yourselves in the Silver Lake shoes - would you want your kids to go all the way to Silver Lake to school?"

He said Atwood parents would probably be in favor of a new school in Prairie Township, but he thought building a new school in Winona Lake was unfair to Claypool and Silver Lake students.

McGuire plans to meet with the patrons of each of the schools proposed for closing. He will be at Silver Lake Elementary at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Atwood Elementary at 7 p.m. Thursday and Claypool Elementary at 7 p.m. June 3.

The school board will vote on the issue at its June 16 meeting. [[In-content Ad]]