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Concerned Citizens for Quality Education are prepared to take action if the Warsaw School Board Monday votes to close three schools: They may seek help from an attorney.
"Our organization will perhaps hire a lawyer to help us with this situation," said Becky Thomas, CCQE chairwoman, in a WRSW interview Friday. "... I think we need to further it if we don't succeed Monday night."
Thomas said the community has reservations about the proposed closing of Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake elementaries, and "I don't think we are getting answers to the community's questions."
The original proposal by Warsaw Community Schools Superintendent Dr. Dave McGuire at the May 19 school board meeting was to close Silver Lake, Claypool, Atwood and Jefferson elementaries and build two new schools - one in Prairie Township to replace Atwood and help relieve overcrowding at Harrison and Leesburg elementaries, and one in Winona Lake to replace Jefferson.
In June, in response to protests from patrons in the southern part of the county, McGuire changed his proposal to closing the same four schools, and building a new school in Claypool or renovating the current school, which would include Silver Lake students, and keeping the new school in Winona Lake. The Prairie Township school was dropped from the proposal.
That proposal was approved by the board at its 1028 hearing June 16. However, the next month residents from all over the WCS district gathered enough signatures to formally file notice that they intended to remonstrate against the June 16 decision. In response, McGuire withdrew the proposed building project, citing a reluctance to divide the community further, and recommended the board only close the three smallest schools, leaving Jefferson open, and absorbing the students from Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake into the remaining Warsaw schools.
Thomas said one of the reasons for the remonstrance was the fact that the Prairie Township school was dropped from consideration, while a replacement for Jefferson Elementary was still on the drawing table, and replacing Jefferson had never been discussed in the past.
"And the Atwood people became more convinced that an Atwood school was the proper thing to do," she said.
Now that building new schools is out of the question, at least temporarily, the CCQE members believe they are being punished for opposing the project. At Wednesday's CCQE meeting with McGuire, board member Larry Chamberlain and WCS finance manager Rande Thorpe, several patrons said they were told the three small schools would be kept open for the three years it would take to plan and build two new schools, but would be closed within a year if they were not.
Remonstrators have other concerns as well. They said they understand the need to cut expenses, but can't reconcile that with the current $30 million building project that involves non-academic facilities, such as a performing arts center, weight and wrestling room and football stadium.
"If you were in dire straits, why didn't you drop the high school program and spend the money on the elementary schools?" asked Jeff Dotson at Wednesday's meeting.
They also point to individual expenses involved in the high school building program, such as a concession stand for more than $400,000, which is more than the corporation hopes to save the first year after closing the three schools.
The lengthy bus ride for the Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake students is an issue, as is keeping the staff members of the three closed schools on the WCS payroll.
"So where are the savings going to come from?" asked one parent at Wednesday's meeting.
"It's not just that we're concerned about our schools being closed, it's that we don't believe we've been told the whole truth about the situation," said a parent Wednesday.
Closing Claypool Elementary is another issue the remonstrators can't understand, since the school is relatively new.
"Why would they want to close Claypool when the building is only 17 years old?" Thomas asked. "The taxpayers have paid for that building, why do they want to get rid of it? I think that's pretty harmful to the board and to Dr. McGuire."
One of the goals of CCQE is to form a committee representing all schools in the district that would advise the board on school closings and buildings.
"We want quality education," Thomas said, "and we want time to talk to the school board and bring the community together and let us have some input and know they would be listened to."
Asked if there were any positive aspects to the situation, Thomas said, "No. I'm sorry, at this time, no. They just have too many things that have not been given to us - information - at this time, I'm not feeling positive at all."
The board is expected to vote on the issue Monday at 7 p.m. The board meeting will take place in Edgewood Middle School Commons because of the limited amount of room in the administration building.
