DeKALB – The DeKalb School Board voted Tuesday night to close Malta Elementary School.
The unanimous vote means Malta will close its doors after the 2010-11 academic year.
Superintendent Jim Briscoe said he met with the staff at Malta last week and told them that while the walls of the building may be missed, he knows the excellent work they do will happen no matter where they are.
“I know it’s no consolation to the staff, but I told them what our plans are is to pick up that culture, pick up all those traditions, and move them down the road,” Briscoe said.
Briscoe has said that students who now attend or would attend Malta Elementary will be sent to other schools in the district. Some will move to Wright Elementary School, which is also in Malta. Students attending Wright, who are part of the Northern Illinois University Partnership program, could be moved to the current Huntley Middle School, which will be an elementary school starting in 2011.
“I’ve been a friend of Malta for many years,” board member James Mitchell said. “I really don’t want to do something like this, but you’ll see with my vote what I’m going to do.”
Members of the DeKalb School Board have been discussing how to best use facilities since September, when administrators first presented them five reconfiguration options. All five options proposed closing Malta and Tyler elementary schools after the 2010-11 school year.
But the plan approved by the school board in December didn’t close any schools. The board instead decided to first determine how they wanted to group students according to grade, and talk about which, if any, buildings would be closed as a separate discussion and decision.
At the Feb. 2 meeting, administrators discussed with the board closing either Malta Elementary or Wright Elementary. Operating costs for Malta are significantly higher than those of Wright, Briscoe told the board then.
Other changes that will happen in the 2011-12 academic year are that the old DeKalb High School will become a middle school, and Huntley Middle School will become an elementary school for kindergarten through fifth-graders. Ninth- through 12th-grade students will be in the new high school on Dresser Road – made possible through part of a $110 million referendum passed in 2008 to build two new schools and remodel three others.
Board Secretary Holly Wallace requested the district’s Facility Planning Committee – which is comprised of residents and district staff and administrators - be tasked with determining short- and long-term plans for both Malta Elementary and the old Cortland Elementary facilities. The old Cortland Elementary has been vacant since the new school in Cortland opened last fall.
School Board President Mike Verbic agreed, noting having abandoned buildings in those communities would not be beneficial. Wallace recommended the FPC have an update for the board by June.
“I would like an update, not recommendations,” she said. “I would like an idea of how they plan to tackle these two projects. I would just like some choices.”