TONAWANDA CITY SCHOOLS
Tonawanda City Schools eye consolidation
Published: February 09, 2010, 12:30 am
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Hoping to adapt to a declining enrollment and eliminate some major expenses from its budget, the Tonawanda City School District is looking to consolidate its three remaining elementary schools into a single campus in the near future.
Days after the Board of Education adopted last week’s recommendations by a community task force calling for the district to restructure its elementary levels into a single building, district administrators informed the state Education Department of their intent to build a new school building.
School Superintendent Whitney K. Vantine said the district would seek proposals, designs and cost estimates from architects during the next few months.
“We’re trying to say with this project, ‘Here is a mechanism we believe could provide a strong equality of educational opportunities for our kids,’ ” Vantine said. “It would be more cost-effective to operate a single elementary campus than three [buildings].”
Tonawanda operated four elementary buildings last year, but the district decided to close Highland Elementary at the close of the 2008-09 school year because of declining enrollment throughout the city. With studies projecting the city’s school-age population to further decrease in the future, Vantine said he believes that a single campus is the way to go. He promised a far more open process than the move to close Highland, which was decided on short notice.
District administrators explained that it is wiser to construct a new building rather than retrofit an existing school for a number reasons, including creating a “greener” campus that would save money for the city in the long term and removing any perceived bias by keeping one building open over the other two.
“In our minds, the buildings that we have are quite old,” Vantine said. “It makes more sense to us to go with a new facility. We’re looking for a building that will last 20 to 40 years without significant modification.”
District officials did not say where the new building would be, nor how much construction would cost, but did say that it would be aided by state funding.
Vantine noted a preference for the Fletcher Elementary site, which is across the street from Tonawanda High and Middle School and would centralize the district’s entire campus.
If the district decides to move forward with a new building, it would first have to be approved by city voters.
The district hopes to work with city officials on its plans. Common Council President Carleton R. Zeisz said he was just informed of the district’s intentions and plans to discuss them with other Council members in the near future.
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