Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
SILVER LAKE - Parents of Silver Lake Elementary School students and residents of the town met in the school's 70-year-old gymnasium, where gold brick still lines the bottom half of the walls and blue velvet curtains cover the stage.
Monday night questions were asked of two Warsaw School Board trustees.
The parents weren't guaranteed any answers and did not receive any.
Last year the Warsaw school board decided a community-based planning project was in order and hired two consultants: Dr. Robert L. Boyd and Dr. John G. Ellis. Boyd's committee included two Silver Lake-area residents out of 50 community members who participated in the project.
In June the Warsaw school board, of which Silver Lake Elementary School is a part, received a summary that recommended closing the local school, citing costs per student to educate them and to achieve equity in educational programs, staffing, services and facilities. The study cost $17,000.
The more than 65 community members who attended the Silver Lake meeting said they think their school is just fine and most literally shuddered at the thought of relocating their children. A few said they never would have moved to Silver Lake if they thought the building would be closed in the next few years.
Former school board member Gordon Vanator served as facilitator during the meeting, which was sponsored by the Silver Lake Parent-Teacher Organization. Warsaw school board members Charles Sauders and Roy Szymanski attended to gather information.
Vanator directed those in attendance to average daily maintenance costs per student outlined in the report. With Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake elementaries, with attendance of less than 200 students each, the costs are $4,412, $4,087 and $3,805 respectively. The school districts with more than 500 students enrolled per school - Eisenhower, Leesburg and Harrison - were the least expensive to operate ($3,244, $3,191 and $3,095).
The parents weren't moved by those figures. Their bottom line was keeping the small school in their community, where the teachers know their children's names, habits and moods. Several parents suggested their children would be lost in the shuffle of a larger school, cut from athletics and spend more than an one and one-half hours on a bus each day.
When asked if the school board had made any decisions regarding Silver Lake school, Szymanski said absolutely not.
"At the Nov. 13 school board meeting more information will be provided," he said. "A timetable will be developed to disseminate the information."
Angela Colton, a former Huntington County resident, said her family moved to Silver Lake after careful research. "My son went to a school with 600 other kids. The student-teacher ratio was 32 to 1," she said. "Here, all the teachers know all the children's names. They teach more than reading and writing. They teach how to be responsible, they won't get that in a larger school system. These teachers are doing their jobs, they work with the kids. They help them. They are with them eight hours a day. Surely you have other considerations than cost."
Lonnie O'Hara suggested the costs for teachers would be the same with their salaries and benefits whether or not a new school was built.
Susie Leichtenwalter commented that no one ever got her son's name wrong until he went to the middle school.
Joe Gray is an out-of-state import who purposely chose to live in Silver Lake because of the school. The former Minnesotan said big schools are not where it's at. "You ought to be able to support this school," he said.
Thelma Miller said she, her son, her stepfather and her grandparents all attended the elementary school and she hoped her children went there, too.
Jodi Conley, PTO president and parent, asked what happened to Option H. (Option H was a 1984 study that considered building a newer elementary school in Silver Lake. In that study it was found the elementary wasn't handicapped accessible. That study also found the high school wasn't operating within its budget and funding went to the Warsaw school).
A woman from Arizona, who recently moved to Silver Lake from Warsaw, also said she deliberately chose the town because of the school. "If this school hadn't been here," she said, "we wouldn't have moved here."
The school board members were asked if the board is closing the school so the high school could afford its new football stadium. Sauders said the board plans to make a decision about the small schools and other items brought to the fore by the current study by June.
In a light moment Ed Kerlin said he is probably closer to the school than anyone else, living in the house to the south of the school property for 24 years and "late for school every day."
Kerlin said the school board may have already made a decision of some kind because representatives approached his father recently about buying property to build a new school.
Colton asked whether or not volunteers couldn't divide the stairs in half and install ramps. She said fund-raisers could pay for lifts for handicapped accessibility, if that is all that is wrong with the building.
Someone suggested the $17,000 spent on the study would pay for a lot of improvements.
Shelly Owens said she will be attending college in the fall and had planned to become an elementary school teacher. "I won't study education, though, if this school closes,"she said. "I hated going to a bigger school. Here I was on every team. In high school I quit volleyball because I couldn't take it.
"Think about busing all those kids. They'll have to get up earlier, and when you do you practically fall asleep in the first class of the day."
John Gray asked whether or not the children taught in small schools did better on tests and in testing at higher levels. He asked what it mattered what it cost to educate them if they did better than average.
Town councilman Gale Owens asked why $17,000 was spent on the study when tax dollars pay the school board. "We pay you to work for us," he said, "not out-of-town consultants."
As the meeting drew to a close Szymanski thanked everyone who attended and reminded them the next Warsaw school board meeting will be Nov. 13 at 7 p.m.
