GARY — Schools Superintendent Myrtle Campbell and her staff will go back to the drawing board to come up with more suggestions for meeting a $14 million deficit, following a lengthy daylong meeting with the School Board on Saturday.
Campbell heard a significant amount of feedback from the board after rolling out sweeping recommendations to close two elementary schools and restructure the high schools and middle schools.
“We’re going back to the table to incorporate the suggestions (board members) had,” she said. “These were only recommendations, so we wanted to hear what they thought.”
The plans presented Saturday were not final, but they were money-saving suggestions, Campbell insisted.
Many of the proposals were based on a facilities plan that called for closing Webster Elementary and Watson Academy for Boys. All 1,400 middle schoolers would have been moved to Roosevelt Career and Technical Academy, with freshman citywide moving to Lew Wallace STEM Academy.
The plan also called for sophomores, juniors and seniors going to West Side Leadership Academy, said assistant superintendent George Comer. Bethune Early Education and Banneker would have been moved to Wirt-Emerson, which would’ve become the city’s only K-12 school.
The first plan also called for relocating Brunswick Elementary to Ivanhoe Elementary beginning the 2012-2013 school year.
But board members appeared to favor keeping the co-ed academy concept, in place for only two years, which houses middle and high school students.
Most board members also insisted Watson remain open and called for the district to find ways to pour more resources into the boys academy, which recently received $3 million in improvements.
“If we close Watson and just leave the (McCullough) Girls Academy open, what kind of message are we sending?,” asked board member Marion Williams.
Reconfiguring schools won’t be enough to make up for the $14 million shortfall, most of which, about $9 million, was caused by falling property tax revenues and the elimination of a state grant to make up for lost tax revenue, said business manager Alesia Pritchett, the district’s financial guru.
Most of the remaining $5 million shortage is from the state’s elimination of tuition support dollars, she added.
Next year, the district will have to wrestle with a $26 million shortfall, Pritchett said.
In large part, the number of school buildings that remain open will determine what staff — from custodians to teachers and principals — will remain working when the dust settles.
Add to that the requirement that school officials will have to negotiate with various unions before making significant adjustments.
Other cuts being considered are reductions in summer offerings, an energy utilization plan to cut utility costs, eliminating some building administrators and teachers and taking a different approach to custodians and maintenance personnel.