Only three options are available to Warsaw Community Schools if they want to stay solvent. One of those options is not possible and two are unpopular.

Rande Thorpe, business manager for WCS, said Friday the struggle for the school corporation to remain solvent involves increasingly difficult decisions.

"The problem is, we've got to do something," he said. The only options, he said, are to cut school expenses, cut staff or get more money.

Getting more money is out of the question because of the state's current financial crisis, and staff positions were cut last year. That leaves reducing school expenses, and that means closing the three smallest schools - Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake elementaries.

The school closings will be proposed by superintendent Dr. Dave McGuire Monday at the school board meeting. And the reason, Thorpe said, is that "the smaller schools are being subsidized by the larger schools."

The inequity, Thorpe said, comes with the number of students in each school. The total number of students this year at the three small schools - Atwood, 140; Claypool, 152; and Silver Lake, 168 - does not total the number of students at Harrison Elementary in 2002 - 559.

A teacher is paid the same to teach a class of 14 students or to teach 26, he said, plus the school building still must be heated, cooled and maintained, and the students still need the same books and supplies as those in the larger schools.

"With a smaller school, you'll be spending more per pupil," he said.

McGuire is slated to propose Monday that Atwood students be bused to Madison, Claypool kids to Eisenhower and Silver Lake students to Washington, and that the closing and redistricting will save the school corporation approximately $300,000 per year.

That proposal brings to mind several questions:

First, what will happen to the teachers and principals of the closed schools?

Thorpe said some of the principals are near retirement age, but they will be moved to other schools until they retire. Likewise, teachers from the closed schools also will be retained and will be moved to other buildings.

Will there be additional expenses with the added busing?

"Probably," Thorpe said, but it wouldn't be significant. ... "We might have some additional expenses, we might have to buy an additional bus, but that would probably be it."

How would the remaining schools handle the additional student load?

"We have 12 portables (classrooms)," Thorpe said. "We'll just be putting them back in service."

Four of the portables are at Jefferson, three at Lincoln and five at Washington, he said, and many of them are used for storage or for classes that now will be held at the renovated Lakeview Middle School. There will be some additional expense for heating and cooling them, he said, but "we won't have the upkeep of the small schools."

Thorpe said in the past the bonds for the proposed new school buildings would have been plugged into the debt service as the bonds for the high school debt are paid off, resulting in no increase in taxes for two new school buildings. Now that those buildings are not going to be built, will the WCS tax rate go down?

"A little bit, probably, yes," Thorpe said. But WCS could choose to restructure the debt to pay it off sooner, he said, in which case there would be no immediate change, "but then there could be a large drop-off later."

Thorpe said, if necessary, the gifted and talented programs could be cut, saving the school system approximately $125,000 per year; Step One and A+ programs could be stopped, saving approximately $131,000; and elementary extracurricular programs, including clubs and athletics, could be cut, saving approximately $100,000 per year.

"If we're not solvent, the state will come in and say, 'You will cut this and you will close this,' ..." Thorpe said, citing several school districts in Indiana that have been taken over by the state. "We need to control our own destiny." [[In-content Ad]]