N.J.-S.P. Superintendent Backtracks on Elementary School Closure

Posted on July 25, 2016
Author Mary Perren, WKVI 

The North Judson-San Pierre School Board will revisit plans to close the current elementary school building at a future meeting, according to Superintendent Dr. Annette Zupin. It will open as a kindergarten-6th grade facility when school starts next week following action by the board at a special-called May 9th meeting. Seventh and 8th grade classes will meet at the high school.

During that session they also voted unanimously to move N.J.-S.P. Elementary School to 950 Campbell Drive, effective July 1, 2017. That’s the address of the current middle school building, which is adjacent to the high school. The minutes of that meeting state “The 2017-18 school year will be the first year that the elementary begins conducting elementary educational services from this location.”

Then-interim Superintendent Dr. Robert Boyd said later in the meeting, “Our goal would be to, we’ve already implemented a serious look-see at it as soon as school is out and then do some planning on how quickly can we  retrofit that building to accommodate appropriately elementary youngsters. Chalkboards are too high, toilets are too big. We’ve got to do some work.”

During last week’s school board meeting, Zupin said no decisions have been made yet about the elementary site.

“We don’t know what is going to happen with the middle school in 2017-18. We don’t know, but we do know that we can’t just let it sit and deteriorate. So we want to make sure that everything is OK so that when we know what is going to happen with that middle school that we’re ready for it. We’re going to use the geo bonds that Dr. Boyd worked on obtaining for us to do that,” Zupin said.

WKVI News sought clarification from Zupin via email late last week and received this response.

“As the new Superintendent of NJ-SP I want to take some additional time to assess the infrastructure and organization of the middle school and elementary school before making any major and crucial decisions. At the Aug. 16 school board meeting there will be an action item on the agenda to approve a motion that moving NJ-SP Elementary School (K-6) to the NJ-SP Middle School on July 1 is only an option.”

Zupin continued, “During the next several months we will look closely at enrollment, classroom space/size, and special programs to help make a decision as to how to best utilize the current middle school.”