Danielle Rush, Tribune Staff Writer

In the face of a $3.6 million cut in state funding this year, Kokomo-Center Superintendent Christopher Himsel will recommend closing three elementary schools at the end of the current school year, to fully implement elementary consolidation already in the works. He will also recommend beginning middle school consolidation. The consolidations are about a year earlier than anticipated.

If the recommendation is accepted, Wallace and Washington schools will close, as will Maple Crest Elementary. The Maple Crest building will stay open, housing middle school students only.

Dave Barnes, Kokomo-Center’s public relations consultant, said if the school board approves Himsel’s recommendation at its March 10 meeting, then starting in August, all sixth- and seventh-graders will either attend Maple Crest or Central middle schools. Current seventh-graders at Lafayette Park and Bon Air middle schools will have the option to stay at their schools for eighth grade, he said, or they may move to Central or Maple Crest.

Himsel met with teachers and staff in buildings affected Thursday, Barnes said.

He said school officials are “not even close to determining” how many jobs would be cut.

“We’re going to do it through attrition as much as possible, seeing what we’re doing with retirements and resignations first,” he said.

Barnes said because negotiations are ongoing between the corporation and the teachers’ association, he could not comment on if there might be a retirement incentive offered.

The school board approved consolidating from 11 elementaries to six and from four middle schools to two in December 2007, after an approximately 18-month process of town hall meetings and community focus groups studying enrollment, building needs and ages and corporation financial issues.

Consultants told the board the corporation had 2,000 more available student spaces than needed, which was the equivalent of having a building the size of Kokomo High School, with utilities and staff, but no students.

The board approved the specific schools that would stay open and those that would close in June 2008.

The board had hoped to save money and reallocate those resources to expand alternative and early childhood education programs and to increase teacher salaries to compete with schools of similar size.

Himsel said now the consolidation is going to help the corporation weather reduced funding due to declining enrollment and state budget cuts.

He said if the reorganization had not already started, and two elementary schools had not already closed, the situation could be much worse, but "the disappointing part is the amount of money that needs to be reduced before the end of the school year is more than the savings the reorganization was going to reap."