Schools in USD 282-Howard will undergo considerable change in the coming year following Monday night’s board of education meeting.

The board voted 4-3 to keep both the Severy Elementary School and Moline Elementary Schools open for the 2009-10 school year. Both will have pre-kindergarten classes and kindergarten.
Grades 1-3 will attend Severy and students in grades 4-6 will attend Moline.

The sixth grade will be moved back to the elementary program after recently being moved to the West Elk High School campus.

Five independent consultants evaluated both the Severy and Moline school buildings and campuses. Their consensus was: Both buildings are in poor condition. Neither is a good long-term solution. Both could be continued for use in the short term.

Two of the consultants favored Moline and two favored Severy.

The fifth said that either building would be fine for one or two years but favored Severy if looking at five to ten years.

Some of the consultants put numbers (scoring) to the test and there were no major differences in the two facilities.

The board recently appointed a Facilities Advisory Committee. In the group’s one meeting they favored closing one building and consolidating into the other. However, “which” building was never determined and there was never a majority opinion to report back to the board.

No doubt, the issue will be discussed more in the coming months as the West Elk school district attempts to find solutions to enrollment and valuation losses and cuts in state aid to all districts in the state.