Lawmaker proposes $5 million to help East Chicago schools deal with loss of students

Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, has sponsored legislation that would provide about $2.2 million for payments on the former Carrie Gosch Elementary School and just over $2.8 million to cover an emergency state loan for the district that was approved in August.

The neighborhood where the former school building, built in the late 1990s, is located -- at 455 E. 148th St. in East Chicago in Zone 1 of the USS Lead Superfund site — is grappling with a decades-in-the-making environmental and public health crisis with highly elevated lead and arsenic soil levels.

Soil tests conducted in the nearby West Calumet Housing Complex registered contamination for lead and arsenic as high as 228 times the level that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials consider potentially hazardous to children.

Zone 1, which includes the West Calumet Housing Complex and Carrie Gosch Elementary, runs from McCook Avenue to the Indiana Harbor Canal, with 151st Street on the south and 148th Street on the north.

In August — days before the start of the school year — School City of East Chicago Superintendent Paige McNulty announced the school's 430 students and 40 teachers would be housed in the former West Side Junior High School building for at least the 2016-17 school year.

While Gosch itself had been declared safe, a section of the parking lot on the school's southeast side needed remediation, Brad Benning, the EPA's on-site coordinator for emergency response in Region 5, said at the time.

Carrie Gosch students will continue to attend their new school – the former West Side Junior High building -- at 4001 Indianapolis Blvd. -- in 2017-18, McNulty said via email on Tuesday.

McNulty said she has been in contact with current and former lawmakers for several months and is grateful for their efforts.

"I believe they are doing all they can to help our community and schools during this crisis," she said in an email. "I very much appreciate their support and dedication to our district."

Since the scope of the lead crisis became publicly apparent last year, Carrie Gosch has seen a drop in enrollment. Currently, 351 students attend, according to the school. That compares to 515 in 2015-16, according to state figures. The school has continued to lose students, McNulty said.

The district will end up losing state tuition funding for 275 students, McNulty said, and has had to deal with unanticipated expenses including payments on the prior building, renovations and extra busing.

Days after the move was announced in August, the Indiana  Board of Education voted to approve a disaster loan of up to $3 million, according to the Associated Press. The district used the money for the move to the new building, including retrofitting the former West Side Junior High building for elementary students.

"It's like a temporary Band-Aid is what it is," Randolph said of the loan. It "would be due, and the East Chicago School Corporation would not have the" funds to cover it.

His proposal would provide $2.8 million to directly repay the state school disaster loan relief fund by on behalf of East Chicago schools by July 15.

Initially, the EPA had rented office space in the building. But, they had left for the winter months and the building is currently empty, McNulty said.

The district paid $720,000 on the building last week and still owes around $2 million for the school, she said.

Randolph's bill would provide $2.2 million in three installments to the district to help make payments on that building.

It would pay $1.472 million to East Chicago in the 2016-17 year to make two payments of $736,000 on July 1 and July 15.

The third installment of $736,000 to East Chicago schools would be made by Dec. 1, 2017 for a payment due on Jan 15, 2018.

"Everything (with the lead crisis) right now is ongoing," he said. The bill would be "a temporary relief thing to allow the people involved to come up with a solution."

Reporter Craig Lyons contributed to this report.