E.O. Muncie to close; most students will go to Anderson

The ailing E.O. Muncie Elementary School will close at the end of the 2017-18 school year. After three years of discussions, the Madison Consolidated Schools Board voted 3-2 Wednesday to approve a lengthy motion by member Carl Glesing outlining exactly how the district will deal with the school closure, including improvements needed to reopen Anderson Elementary School, how much the project will cost and how it will be paid for. Glesing moved that the board renovate and expand Anderson - which was closed several years ago and now serves as the district’s early education center - to accommodate 75 percent of Muncie’s kindergarten through fourth-grade students along with the preschool program. The remaining 25 percent of Muncie students would be reassigned to other elementary schools through redistricting. Glesing’s motion also capped the Anderson renovation/expansion project at $3.5 million, but set a goal of doing the work for $3 million or less. The board would pay for the project using existing capital construction funds and the district’s $2.6 million Rainy Day Fund, which was boosted by an additional $1.9 million earlier in the meeting. The board OK’d the transfer of $1.7 million from the General Fund and $195,000 from the Transportation Fund into the Rainy Day Fund by a vote of 3-2. “There will be no bonding, no debt or tax increases, and there will be no decisions made on E.O. Muncie (property) until its closure in 2018,” Glesing said. “In my six years on the school board, I’ve been asked to make some very difficult decisions,” Glesing said prior to the motion. “Some were not popular. But I stand by Joyce. I made it a point to talk to the community. People do want a new building, but are unwilling, for the most part, to pay for it. We’re low on options.” “I guess this is it,” said Rob Kring, who with new board member Jeanne Ann Dugle, cast the two dissenting votes for Glesing’s motion, as well as the earlier transfer of funds. “I still don’t believe this is what the majority of the community wants, but this has got to be it. We’ve got to move forward. I still believe that E.O. Muncie is the better property, but this is a democracy and I will respect the decision. I hope Anderson becomes the best elementary school we have,” Kring said. Linda laCour, who with Glesing and board president Joyce Imel voted in favor of the motion, said she believes renovating Muncie “would be very expensive, and we would still have an old building. We are beyond being able to fix everything,” she said. “I don’t want a referendum, and I don’t believe most people want one. ... We have (a certain amount of funds) to work with, and this seems to be the only way.” Board members are wary of attempting another referendum after it failed to pass a referendum in 2014, which would have been used to build a new elementary school and rebuild Madison Consolidated High School. The cost just to renovate Muncie has been estimated to be as high as $14 million. “I, too, am sentimental about E.O. Muncie,” Imel said, adding that she began her teaching career in Madison at the school 50 years ago and had actually watched as the school was built in the late 1950s. “But it is not safe for the well-being of students and staff. I said over and over I don’t want to reopen Anderson, but I feel our hands are tied. We have to move forward, and that is the only way.”