Elwood superintendent: Close middle school, recommends referendum

“I think we have great facilities for a community our size, but we no longer have that many kids,” Austin said of the enrollment decline of nearly 30 percent over the past 23 years.

During Tuesday night’s school board meeting at Edgewood Elementary School in Elwood, Austin said closing the middle school and shuffling the students to the two elementary schools and high school was the best of three options he and consultants reviewed to help close a $3 million budget gap.

“Never in my history did I ever think that this district would ever face this type of shortfall,” Austin told the audience.

The plan would call for pre-kindergarten through second graders to be housed at Oakland Elementary Schools, third- through sixth-graders to be housed at Edgewood Elementary School and seventh- through 12th-graders to be housed at Elwood High School.

The reconfiguration would save the school system about $276,000 in operating costs, Austin said. He asked the board to make a decision to fully accept, fully reject or amend his recommendation by Thursday’s executive session.

Elwood is one of many public school systems nationwide struggling with budget shortages, as the economy slowly recovers from a recession and slashed state funding.

Austin said the Indiana state legislature threw one more curveball at the end of their session last week. A special vote on the proposed school tax rate won’t be in July as planned; it will be on the November ballot.