Ferndale

The next school year will be the last for Mountain View Elementary School in Ferndale.

The Ferndale School Board voted 4-1 on Thursday, April 26, to close Mountain View at the end of the 2012-13 school year as a cost-saving measure.

Board member Hugh Foulke was the lone no vote, saying that he preferred to close Skyline elementary instead.

“None of us wants to close a school,” board member Andrew McLaurin said. “Everything supports that decision.”

Cuts in state funding, the end of federal stimulus dollars under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a steady decline in student enrollment and how to best use aging buildings without increasing costs make closing an elementary school necessary, school officials have said.

“If we could find an answer that could legitimately avoid this decision, we would be talking about it tonight,” board member Kevin Erickson said.

In deciding to close Mountain View, the board was following the recommendation made in February by the school district’s Facility Advisory Committee.

Although the board’s vote was Thursday, most of the board members said in March that they supported closing Mountain View.

Unlike previous meetings, just one member of the public spoke .

Jenny Kubic, who said she had two daughters who attended Mountain View, asked the board to reconsider — noting that the Mountain View community had supported Ferndale school district’s levy request in February.

“We’re very disappointed that you’re making this choice,” she said. “I’m disappointed.”

Ferndale School District officials have stressed that closing an elementary school won’t affect just that school’s students.

All families in the district will be affected because attendance boundaries will be redrawn and sixth-graders will be moved to middle schools — for the 2013-14 school year — as part of the decision to close an elementary school.

District officials have said that closing an elementary school could save at least $350,000 a year in utilities, salaries and benefits — although no teachers will be laid off because of the closure — maintenance and transportation.

An independent assessment of the district showed that $90 million over the next 10 years is needed to get old school buildings up to current learning standards.

“We couldn’t ask the voters for that kind of money,” school district Superintendent Linda Quinn said of asking voters to approve a bond. “And we don’t have that kind of money.”

The Facility Advisory Committee recommended that Mountain View be closed after more than a year of study.

Mountain View topped the list of six elementary schools the district considered for closure. The volunteer committee provided a numerical ranking based on criteria of location, cost, building condition and/or limitations, safety, and effectiveness in supporting learning, as well as community input.

Board members said closing an elementary school made financial sense during tight budgets and as enrollment declined.

“We can’t support six elementary schools with five elementary schools’ worth of kids,” said Lee Anne Riddle, school board president.

Since the Facility Advisory Committee’s recommendation that Mountain View be closed, the school’s parents have raised a host of concerns about the committee’s recommendation, ranging from the effect of moving special-needs students from a program highly regarded for its approach, to the ranking itself, the information used to arrive at the ranking, and estimated cost savings.

They also expressed safety concerns about having Mountain View students who live in apartments near the school and are from single-parent families to walk farther to get to class. Foulke, in voting against the closure of Mountain View, expressed many of the same concerns.

In response to Foulke’s fears about safety, Riddle said: “We have to make sure those kids have safe routes. We have a year to work that out.”