It was no secret that a school in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District would be recommended to be closed next year.
Then word began spreading l Friday that it would be Jefferson Elementary School. By the time Superintendent Mark P. Mondanaro opened a special meeting Monday afternoon to talk to parents and staff, emotions were nearing the boiling point.
The plan to close the Athens Boulevard school, one of eight elementary schools in a district suffering from chronically declining enrollment, would send Jefferson’s students – projected at 271 this year – to Lindbergh, Hoover, Franklin and Edison schools beginning in 2013-14. Those schools draw their student populations from zones that are contiguous to Jefferson’s.
When all is said and done, the closing would save the district a total of $2,490,990, according to Mondanaro.
Of that, $2,447,451 represents payroll cost savings – accounting for seniority “bumping.” Jefferson currently has 24 teachers; each of the four “receiving” schools would gain only one teacher.
“That’s a lot of money. I think you realize that,” Mondanaro told the dozens of people who attended the meeting.
The balance of the savings reflects expenses such as utilities, insurance, and buildings and grounds costs.
“Is the budget savings for this district great enough, in your estimation, to put [children] through that?” a woman asked the superintendent. “Or would it make more sense to wait?”
The Ken-Ton School Board is expected to vote on the closing recommendation at tonight’s meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in the community room of Hoover Elementary School, 199 Thorncliff Road. Mondanaro’s recommendation is the result of an eight-week administrative study performed in-house.
Separately, the School Board will vote on hiring an outside consulting firm to study a districtwide consolidation in the future.
Documents related to both issues can be viewed on the district’s website: www.kenton.k12.ny.us. Click on Board of Education, then BOE Meeting Documents.
Monday’s meeting was intended as a courtesy to those who would be directly affected by the recommendation.
“I did not think it was appropriate that the public, as a whole ... would see [the documents] without [parents and staff] seeing them first and having an opportunity to ask questions,” Mondanaro said.
Some raised concern about the disruption of children changing schools and friendships that will be splintered when classmates are divided among the different buildings.
Many complained there wasn’t widespread notification about the meeting or the recommendation, and suggested the School Board delay its vote.
Responding to the woman who asked whether it would make more sense to wait, Mondanaro replied: “It doesn’t make more sense to wait, for me, because I already know what’s happening to the children of the district right now.”
email: jhabuda@buffnews.com