School board to consider closing Lincoln

After hearing the administration team?s recommendation for closing Lincoln Elementary School during a work session Monday evening, the Fairfield Community School Board of Directors decided to bring the issue to a regular board meeting.

Superintendent Don Achelpohl began the presentation by saying, ?We are trying to look at the budget five years out to deflect that meteor before we get slapped in the face with it.?

According to the projected Unspent Authorized Budget, the district will have $757,391 next year and $403,372 in fiscal year 2012.

?Then things get bad,? continued Achelpohl, pointing to the negative $735,921 projected for fiscal year 2013 and the negative $2,416,505 projected for fiscal year 2014.

?This is what is driving the administration,? he explained. ?We came at this as how to save money. Then we looked at students and how it could serve them.?

Both Lincoln and Libertyville elementary schools are single-section buildings; they each have one classroom of each grade. Closing one of the single-section schools has a potential savings of more than $300,000 a year ? a repeatable savings that could save more than $1 million in four years, which would help with the negative spending authorities in 2013 and 2014, said Achelpohl.

The savings would be seen through personnel salaries and benefits for an administrator, a teacher, a teacher?s associate, computer associate, secretary, custodian, bus drivers for two Libertyville school routes and a bus driver for Challenge students and shuttling at Libertyville school.

Savings also would be seen through utilities, maintenance, transportation fuel and bus repairs.

The savings could total $331,355 a year if Lincoln is closed, and $373,228 if Libertyville is closed.

Board member Jeri Kunkle asked if closing Libertyville could save more money, why not close Libertyville?

Achelpohl explained the location of Lincoln school is more conducive to, after a few years, re-opening the building. An expanded Opportunity Center, which is the district?s alternative high school, the regional Career Academy and the home school program could be located there.

?Libertyville couldn?t fit those needs because of the location,? said Achelpohl.

Curriculum director Marci Dunlap added re-assigning Lincoln students to the other buildings could allow the three remaining elementary schools and the middle school to qualify for a schoolwide Title I program offering more opportunities to help struggling readers.

Re-assigning Libertyville students would not have the same affect, Dunlap continued.

She explained Title I funds are based on a school?s percentage of students from lower-income families. Libertyville has just over 30 percent, and Lincoln has more than 60 percent.

Board member Doug Flournoy also pointed out, ?Libertyville is our most community-based school.?

?It?s important in the community,? agreed Pence Elementary School principal Nathan Wear. ?We have a lot of young people moving there.?

Closing Lincoln school would create a three-section building at Pence school. Wear said the building would be short one room, but the pre-kindergarten class could be relocated to Washington school.

Washington Elementary School would be a two-section building, and principal Joe Carr said there is a room, with a small restroom across the hall, that can be used for the pre-kindergarten. The district?s other pre-kindergarten class would remain at Roosevelt Community Recreation Center.

Libertyville school would continue as a single-section building.

Pre-kindergarten through fourth-grade students would be at the elementary buildings, but fifth graders would be relocated to the middle school.

Fairfield Middle School principal Mike Dailey explained the middle school is currently set up so the sixth, seventh and eighth grades each have their own main areas. The building has rooms on the north end of the second floor to accommodate five fifth-grade classes, plus a sixth room that can be used for special classes.

Dailey said a few teachers would have to relocate to other rooms in the seventh-grade area to make room for the fifth grade classrooms.

To minimize mingling between the fifth-graders and the sixth- seventh- and eighth-graders, the fifth-graders would use an entry door on the east side of the building, while the other students would continue to use the front entrance, said Dailey.

He said he and associate principal Kelly Schloss would take turns greeting the fifth graders at their entrance and the older students in the commons.

At lunch, an area set up in the commons would accommodate the fifth graders. After they finished eating, they would go outside on the east side of the building, while the older students would continue the routine of exiting through a west door and going to the back of the building.

Dailey would oversee the fifth-grade teachers. One elementary principal would oversee Washington and Libertyville, and a second elementary principal would oversee Pence. One of the current principal positions would be eliminated. Carr and McCracken both plan to retire at the end of this school year.

The administration team is hoping that because of teacher retirements at the end of this year, most Lincoln teachers will be able to continue teaching next year.

For the complete article, see the Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010, printed edition of The Fairfield Ledger.