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Following Tuesday's election, Sullivan County School Board still in favor of closing Turnpike School
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share thisBY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN
Based on the results of Tuesday's election, there will not be enough members on the Sullivan County School Board to overturn the board's recent decision to close the Turnpike Elementary School.
The winners of the four Sullivan County School Board seats in Tuesday's election were Nancy Craft, Kimberly Phillips, James Lambert and Timothy Nitcznski.
The losers in the race for the Sullivan County School Board seats were Charles Amer and write-in candidates Millie Dessify and Edward Bialer.
Nitcznski and Sullivan County School Board members Virginia Miller and Molly Kinsey are opposed to closing the Turnpike School.
Craft, Phillips, and three other members of the board - J. Wilson Ferguson, Darwin Hatch and Rebecca Ferguson - all voted on Oct. 13 to close the school.
Faced with reduced student enrollment, the Sullivan County School Board had voted 5-3 on Oct. 13 to close the Turnpike School.
The cost of upgrading the Turnpike School, which is 75 years old, has been another reason cited by school officials for closing the school.
The school needs a new roof, an upgraded heating system and other improvements, according to Craft and Amer.
The Turnpike School's 130 students will be moved to the Sullivan County Elementary School in Laporte after the 2010-11 school year. To accommodate the increased number of students, an addition would be built onto the Sullivan County Elementary School.
Sullivan County schools Superintendent Steven Gobble has said his preliminary estimate for the cost of the addition is $3.5 million to $4 million.
The consolidation will result in various kinds of savings, such as reduced maintenance costs and less salaries and benefits to pay, Gobble said.
1 posted comments
just remember you asked for it!