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CLAYPOOL - A compromise to the proposed Warsaw Schools building program has the support of the Claypool and Silver Lake communities, but changes the landscape for Atwood students.
At a meeting Monday afternoon at the Claypool Lions Building, attended by approximately 80 people, Warsaw School Board member Gene England presented a suggested compromise from superintendent Dr. Dave McGuire.
McGuire's suggestion was that the four smallest schools - Atwood, Claypool, Jefferson and Silver Lake - be closed, and two new schools be built. However, the location of one of those schools was the compromise. His suggestion was that a new four-section school be built in Winona Lake, and a new three-section school be built in Claypool.
Previously, McGuire had proposed building a new Jefferson Elementary in Winona Lake and a new school in Prairie Township. Both new four-section schools were estimated to cost approximately $31 million. McGuire also had said the students at Claypool and Silver Lake schools would be bused to Jefferson and Eisenhower elementaries.
England said he believes McGuire changed his mind because the Silver Lake parents "seemed in favor of their kids going to Claypool."
"Now we still have a problem with Atwood," he added.
School board member Larry Chamberlain, who also attended the meeting, said he is still concerned about the Atwood students, but that it is difficult to buy land in the area previously discussed for the Prairie Township school (near the intersection of U.S. 30 and Ind. 15) because it is not known where water and utility lines will go.
Don Miller, president of the Claypool Town Council, said they originally called Monday's meeting to announce that they had sent a letter to the school board asking the board to delay its decision for 30 to 60 days to allow for a committee of representatives of all 10 elementaries in the school district to study the issue.
"It is the voice of the people that's not being heard in this process," he said. "This (committee) proposal will allow that."
Deloris Rose, Claypool, said that even with the compromise, the committee could help address the Atwood situation and "some serious problems in some of our other buildings - like overcrowding."
Former school board president Gordon Vanator questioned the need for more studying of the issue, and asked Chamberlain if the school corporation already had a site picked out for a Prairie Township school.
"No," Chamberlain said.
"That's not what I heard," Vanator said.
"There has been no board action on a site," Chamberlain said.
Miller and Cathy Lokotar, of Silver Lake, emphasized that if Silver Lake students are bused to Claypool, the overpass at CR 700S and Ind. 15 should be made safer.
Miller said Claypool has petitioned the county and the state highway departments to work out a solution to the safety issue of the overpass, and that CR 700 may be relocated to allow for a safer approach to Ind. 15.
Other people who attended the meeting asked more questions: "What's the big rush?" one man asked. "Sixty days doesn't make or break anything. ... Is it that we ought to hurry up and get this done before everybody gets their tax bill next fall?"
Another man asked if the Claypool-Silver Lake school was the objective all along and sending the students from those two schools to Winona Lake was proposed to make the compromise more attractive.
England said he is in favor of a Claypool-Silver Lake school, but won't vote for it right away because of the tax situation. Property tax reassessment in Indiana has resulted in delayed property tax bills and most property owners still don't know how much their tax bills will be.
"We're already $30 million in debt, now we want to jump in with another $31 million but I think we should wait until after the new tax assessment in November," England said.
Because McGuire had proposed building a new Jefferson Elementary on what is now Grace College's practice soccer fields, other parents questioned the safety of that property, saying a truck driver had announced at last week's Claypool Elementary meeting that he had dumped toxic materials on that property.
"We need to know the details of the property deal, and we also need to know if the Grace property is environmentally safe," England said.
Vanator said when he was on the school board, replacing Jefferson Elementary with a new school was never discussed.
"I think we need to know the basis of where we're going and why before we vote on anything," he said.
The Warsaw school board will meet at 7 p.m. Monday in the Washington Elementary School gym. Anyone attending the meeting is asked to park at Edgewood Middle School or at the north end of the high school parking lot.
