Board votes to close Reid

By Jean Cole
jean@athensnews-courier.com

March 30, 2009 10:31 pm

— Veteran Limestone County school board member Charles Shoulders said Monday he voted to close 50-year-old Reid Elementary School, in part, for the children.
Shoulders and the six other Limestone school board members voted unanimously to close the kindergarten through sixth-grade school off Browns Ferry Road in Athens and transfer its 166 students to Tanner High School — a kindergarten through 12th-grade school — for the 2009-2010 school year.
“It was very tough for me to close Reid, but for the last 10 years it has been a subject that has frequently been raised,” Shoulders said at the close of the meeting. “People at Reid are tired of us holding it over their heads. With the current economic situation, we decided to go ahead and make the move. But funding is not my only reason to vote to close Reid. I am concerned that every year we delay, we are depriving these children of the best technology we can have before them.”
Still, the main reason for closing Reid was economic.
It would cost $2 million to renovate the school, which was built in 1959. The cost savings of closing the school has been estimated at between $2,000 and $33,000 a year because it would save the school system several teaching units, said Assistant Superintendent Mike Owens and Superintendent Barry Carroll.
Tanner has five classrooms available because annexations by Athens, Madison and Huntsville have lowered enrollment.
Owens said students would benefit by transferring to Tanner because rather than sharing a librarian and English language learner teacher and special education teacher as they have been doing, they would have those people available every day at Tanner.
The small staff at Reid will be placed elsewhere in the system.
Nine of the school’s 10 employees are tenured and would be placed at other schools, Owens said.
One non-tenured employee — a custodian — would be transferred to another school assuming there are no layoffs (due to state budget cuts), said Superintendent Barry Carroll. Reid Principal Casey Lewis, who was an assistant principal at Tanner, will be placed at another school, Owens said.
Board member John Wayne King also expressed his sorrow in having to vote to close the school. He asked Tanner Principal Billy Owens to set a day or days when Reid teachers, parents and students could visit Tanner in the coming months. Owens agreed,
Despite rumors that the Reid school, which includes six to eight acres, would become Limestone’s alternative school, Carroll said, “there has been no discussion of moving the alternative school there.”
Carroll said he tried to address the rumor and other issues earlier Monday when he went to Reid and met with teachers and faculty. At the board meeting, Carroll said, “There are no plans to use Reid for that or any other purpose in the fall.”
Parents of Reid students, many of whom regretted but expected the board decision Monday, were granted one request — that their children be allowed to move to one school, preferably Tanner, because of the location and because some siblings already attend the school. It had been suggested students be sent either to Tanner or to Blue Springs Elementary School when it opens in 2010 in the Clements High School district.
Billy Owens previously told board members that due to annexations by Athens, Madison and Huntsville, enrollment at Tanner has decreased and therefore five classrooms are available in the elementary wing.
Also Monday, board members approved various personnel matters, agreed to lease Belle Mina school for two men building a corn maze and agreed to ban three people from a Limestone County school for a year. To see these stories, go online to www.enewscourier.com or see Wednesday’s edition.