Milford School Board Can't Reach A Consensus On Whether to Close an Elementary School

By Brian McCready, Patch Editor

The Milford Board of Education could not reach a consensus on whether it should close an elementary school next year.

After a lively and spirited one hour discussion on the topic Monday night, members appeared evenly divided on whether it was prudent to shutter an existing elementary school.

This means there will be some high drama at the October 13 Board of Education meeting, which is when the school board will vote on a final school reconfiguration plan. And no one will know until that night what the board will decide. It appears the board was evenly split on whether to close an existing elementary school.

The meeting begins 7 p.m. and will be held at City Hall.

School board Minority Leader John DeRosa said enrollment continues to decline and keeping a school open doesn’t make fiscal sense. He said closing an elementary school would save taxpayers $2.3 million over the next five years. DeRosa estimated taxpayers would save $470,000 annually by closing an elementary school.

But School Board Chairwoman Susan Glennon said she is not comfortable closing two schools. The board has reached consensus to close Harborside Middle School within three to five years once an addition is completed at West Shore Middle School.

“We can’t keep schools open when enrollment goes down and the cost per educating our students keeps going up,” DeRosa said.

But Glennon and Majority Leader Laura Fucci said closing an existing elementary school will not allow the school administration to proceed with planned programmatic upgrades including adding more space for computer labs or science lab space. Also some board members said they would hate to close a school now only to see enrollment start to increase again.

What do you think the school board should do?