Sadness and resignation at Lakeville school slated to close

Teachers and many parents at Crystal Lake Elementary in Lakeville have known for weeks that the school district was going to close a school.

What they didn't know -- until just days ago -- is that it's likely to be theirs.

"You never expect it's going to be you, until it's you," Principal Bill Mack said Friday, the morning after a consultant told the school board that, of the district's nine elementary schools, Crystal Lake should close.

On Tuesday, the board plans to decide the school's fate in a vote that leaves little time for community input.

Mack said he's seen no sign that teachers or parents will fight the recommendation, which he expects the board to approve. Closing a school this summer is just one piece of a two-year, $15.8 million budget-balancing plan that the board adopted last month after Lakeville voters rejected a tax increase for schools. "We understand what needs to happen, but we're very sad," he said.

"We don't want to see our school dismantled," he added. Some teachers have worked at Crystal Lake since it opened 23 years ago, and "it's extremely emotional for them."

Jennifer Harmening, president of the school's parent-teacher organization, had similar thoughts after the board's Thursday meeting. "I knew we were being considered. I wasn't shocked," she said. It's hard to see teachers upset, she said, but "children are resilient, and from a practical standpoint, I knew it was something our district needed to do."

Still, "I wouldn't wish it on anyone else."

The board is on a tight timeline. An earlier proposal from Superintendent Gary Amoroso would have closed a school in 2012, but the board opted to save more money by making the move this year.

Board members need to pick the building and change attendance boundaries at other schools before the district can tell employees where they will work this fall, Amoroso said. Under a plan laid out by administrators, the board will vote Tuesday to approve the closure and see a draft of proposed boundary changes that result on April 5.

To close a school this year, "It's imperative, from our perspective, that the board maintain this timeline," Amoroso said.

Normally, the study that led to the recommendation would have taken three to six months and involved more public feedback, according to the consultants at Wold Architects and Engineers who did it.

Even so, it's doubtful that more time would have led to the selection of a different school, said Vaughn Dierks of Wold. "What we saw in the information was pretty solid. It really pointed toward Crystal Lake."

The study looked at enrollment data, building features, attendance boundaries and more. "It was the most detailed, comprehensive presentation I've seen" in eight years on the school board, said board member Jim Skelly.

Why Crystal Lake?

Crystal Lake was singled out for several reasons.

The school is one of five clustered in northeastern Lakeville, where the district has the most available space compared to the number of students living close by.

It also shares attendance boundary lines with schools that have enough space to accept all 440 of its students. That could lessen the impact of boundary changes, Dierks said.

Secondary reasons led to the choice of Crystal Lake over two other schools, Eastview and Oak Hills. Eastview's neighborhood has a higher student density. Oak Hills, located near the district's border, has more students from outside Lakeville and is in a better position to promote enrollment in the district, Dierks said.

Of those three schools, Crystal Lake also appears best-suited for other uses, he said. Among its advantages: It's in a visible location on a main road (Ipava Avenue, near County Road 46) and it has interior walls that can easily be moved into a new configuration.

The district has estimated it could cut about 11 jobs by closing a school, saving about $725,000 a year. New uses for the building could generate additional savings.

The board plans to keep the building, but hasn't decided what to do with it. The district plans to make the transition by summer 2012.

Most talk so far has focused on using part of the building for community education programs that are now in leased space at the Kenwood Center.

Skelly said Thursday that he'd like the board to commit to moving the Kenwood Center programs as soon as possible. He said he's anxious to avoid a situation like the one faced by Lakeville city leaders, who have struggled over what to do with a vacant police station.

"The last thing we need is an albatross around our necks," he said.

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016