South Bend to consider closing Clay High School and Warren Elementary

South Bend district leaders will have a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss recommendations to close Clay High School and redraw district boundaries. What questions would you like answered? Let the Tribune reporter Carley Lanich know at clanich@gannett.com.

SOUTH BEND — Consultants for South Bend schools have formally recommended closing Clay High School.

After more than a year of studying the issue, consultants say closing Clay will save the district $1.1 million annually and avoid investments of more than $16 million needed to keep the building open over the next five years.

Any closure would be subject to board approval next month and would not be slated to take place until at least the 2024-2025 school year.

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The closure, consultants say, will help distribute students across multiple under-enrolled high schools in the district and protect against state legislation proposed to force closed schools with less than 60% enrollment.

The South Bend district currently has three high schools below that 60% enrollment threshold; Clay, Riley and Washington.

The recommendations come as a part of a long-term facilities plan that would also close Warren Elementary School on the far west side of the district and combine school programs across several buildings with a goal of creating more clearly aligned feeder patterns into remaining high school programs.

Consultants are recommending the district keep its high school magnet program in place and continue open enrollment as school capacity allows. They suggest Clay’s fine art program should transition to Riley High School.

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The plan would create preK-8 schools in each corner of the district at Dickinson, Edison and Marshall. Renovations at those schools and others, along with funding for a new districtwide career center, could cost the district as much as $39 million to be funded through the corporation’s existing referendum and other general bonds.

Without closing Clay, planners say, districtwide realignment could be pushed back years. For consultants, the question quickly became, “Well, if I don’t close Clay, what else am I going to close?”

If closed, Clay and Warren schools would be subject to Indiana’s $1 law — legislation that requires public school corporations to first solicit interest from area charter schools to buy or lease a closing building for $1 before that school is listed at fair market value.

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“We probably spent 90% of the time talking about this over the past several weeks as far as what does it look like for Clay?” Scott Leopold, a consultant with the district’s facility planning team, told reporters. “Is there anything we can do? Are there any alternatives for preserving the program?”

In 2020, South Bend administrators said they would set aside more than $30 million of the district's $54 million capital referendum to "right size" the district.

Consultants from the firms HPM and Fanning Howey have been working with the district over the last year to develop a long-term plan for use of buildings across the corporation.

The consultants organized a series of community meetings this winter in which ideas to close Clay and convert Riley High School to a middle school were largely disfavored, according to the results of a recent survey. Planners instead turned their attention to ideas that would either keep four high schools or close just one.

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The recommendations presented Monday come as the district looks to tighten up its budget amid years of declining enrollment and recently imposed tax caps. The corporation has lost more than 4,000 students over the last decade and with it, tens of millions of dollars in state education funding.

The district closed its Hay and Tarkington elementaries in 2021 and worked last fall to finalize a sale of its downtown administration building to the city for $2.8 million. The corporation has saved at least $400,000 in custodial, maintenance, groundskeeping and supply costs after closing Hay and Tarkington, Assistant Superintendent Kareemah Fowler said last month.

If adopted, recommendations for school closures would not take effect until at least the 2024-2025 school year. Board members are expected to vote on the recommendations during their April 17 meeting at LaSalle Academy.

Email South Bend Tribune education reporter Carley Lanich at clanich@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @carleylanich.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend to consider closing Clay High School and Warren Elementary