Lakeville School Board Officially Shutters Crystal Lake Elementary School

In late January, the president’s Lakeville’s , calling the school a “wonderful example” of how public schools are getting it right.

That was then, but this is now.

In an example of how quickly things can change, Crystal Lake will be closed at the end of the school year.

Lakeville’s School Board approved the closure and future repurposing of Crystal Lake Elementary School Tuesday night. It marks one more dramatic step in what has been an emotional few months for Lakeville and its school district.

Students, parents, and teachers have that one of Lakeville’s nine elementary schools would be closed next year. The move to close a school, and save $750,000 a year, was announced in February when the board approved a to its budget to bridge a deficit over the next two years.

But what the community didn’t know, until last Thursday, was that . On Tuesday night, the board made it official.

During the meeting, Crystal Lake’s Principal Bill Mack told the board that the closure will have a powerful impact on the district and community.

“(Crystal Lake) has an amazing culture,” Mack said. “But once that culture is dismantled, it can never return to what it once was.”

He said that having a positive learning environment includes building a school where students feel safe and cared for, and in the process of building that environment, Crystal Lake has become a close knit family.

"Once you take your vote this evening to close our school, the process to do so becomes 100 percent emotional," Mack said.

The sentiment is the same for parents.

“I was shocked,” said Michelle Johnson, a parent of a fourth-grader at Crystal Lake of hearing the news. “We are 442 children and countless parents and staff who love the school for the unique community we have carefully built.”

Johnson, who is also the school’s Girl Scout coordinator, said Crystal Lake is a “very close knit community of kids, parents, staff, (and) teachers.” She said Friday was tough, with students, teachers and staff “in tears all day long.”

Pamela Zidarich said her third-grader is pretty upset by the school’s closure.

“It's hard for kids to understand that the decision isn't a personal attack on their school, but that it's been done for financial reasons,” Zidarich said. “He knows that he probably (wont) attend school next year with his friends that don't live close to us, and that's hard for him.”

Both Johnson and Zidarich said they’ll be sticking it out in Lakeville, despite the closure, and that open enrolling elsewhere isn’t in their plans.

“We chose Lakeville as our home because of the schools here, and will stay for the same reason,” Zidarich said.

Crystal Lake was chosen over the other eight elementary schools after an analysis by the school district’s engineering consultant, Wold Architects, found the school was the best choice. That report was given at a work session last Thursday, and didn’t provide much time for community reaction.

That was done, in part, because administrators and the School Board are on a tight timeline according to Superintendent Gary Amoroso. The board fast-tracked the school closure to this year, instead of 2012 as administrators recommended. In order to give students and teachers a chance to learn where they will be next year, work on new attendance boundaries needs to start in earnest, with the first draft of new boundaries due to the board on April 5.

"It's imperative, from our perspective, that the board maintain this timeline," Amoroso said last week.

Vaughn Dierks, a partner with Wold, said a number of factors went into recommending Crystal Lake for closure, including maintaining a geographical balance between schools that would have the least impact on boundary adjustments. Secondary considerations included which building would be the easiest to repurpose, traffic patterns and the schools proximity to borders as well as open enrollment in and out of the school.

Wold’s analysis found that Crystal Lake, and elementary schools were best served for closure because they sat in areas where other nearby schools had the most capacity to absorb additional students and also offered the least boundary change impact.

But Eastview, Dierks said, had a large neighborhood density of students that cut down on transportation costs, and Oak Hills has proven to be a destination school for open enrollment and defends the district’s boundaries.

Crystal Lake, meanwhile, is also suitable for repurposing, Dierks said, because of its high visibility location on County Road 46, as well as being built with demountable partition walls that allows flexibility for reconfiguring space.

Crystal Lake fifth-grade teacher Michele Jansen told the board that it seems the school is the victim of “cold, hard math,” and not “what’s best for the students.”

But Amoroso disagreed.

"When you look at the nine schools, a differentiator would not be a caring staff. I’m proud of (all our schools),” Amoroso said. No matter of study would have changed the recommendation, he said.

For some School Board members, closing Crystal Lake wasn’t easy, even though they found it necessary.

“Each building has its own personality,” said board member Bob Erickson, whose youngest daughter attended the school. “But all the fond memories my wife and I have—those will never be erased. If you’re not a stakeholder you don’t feel it. (But) after last week, I called my daughter and told her we were re closing her school. She said, ‘Dad, why are you doing that. So I have some value added to this decision.”

Superintendent Gary Amoroso said work will begin immediately to reconfigure attendance boundaries. In addition to Board Chair Judy Keliher and Board member Roz Peterson, former district employees Tom Coughlin and Greg Utecht, both of whom were a part of the district’s last boundary change in 2007, will be part of a group charged with making new boundaries.

Dierks said closing the elementary school didn’t require a boundary change at the middle school or high school levels.

No decisions have been formally made about what Crystal Lake could be used for in the future, but the lease for the district’s Community Education programs that currently occupy the Kenwood Center is up on Aug. 31, 2012.

Dierks said those programs wont fill the building, and multiple tenants, such as Lakeville’s Early Childhood Family Education could also occupy the building, saving lease payments for both programs. Those leases total more than $500,000 a year.

Though School Board member Jim Skelly said it’s important to him to identify a use for the soon-to-be-empty building as soon as possible, pointing to the city’s vacant police station as proof that a plan is needed.

Next up, the attendance boundary model will be presented at a Tuesday, April 5 School Board Study Session.