Community members and parents of Crescent Elementary School students asked the Council Bluffs Community School District board members Tuesday to vote with their hearts and vote against closing the elementary school.
In January, the school district sent parents a letter informing them of their recommendation to close the school at the end of the school, mainly because of falling enrollment numbers and a decrease in school funding.
"At a time where we have no extra money, and at a time when we are concerned over student achievement because of ongoing combination classrooms since it's such a small school, we think the time to bring the recommendation is now," says Superintendent Martha Bruckner.
Bruckner says the school's enrollment has been decreasing each year. This year, the school has 85 students, the lowest enrollment in ten years. Last year, the school had 96 students, and during the 2014-2015 school year, the school had 110 students total.
Bruckner says another factor is that many students in the Crescent area don't attend the school. The school's recommendation plan noted that only 63 of the 120 students who live in the Crescent area go to the school and many others attend different schools or enrolled in another district.
The district says if the school closes, the students will be moved to Lewis and Clark Elementary in Council Bluffs.
Many of the parents at the meeting said they don't want the school to close because they like the small-sized classrooms and one-on-one attention the students receive from teachers.
"The biggest thing is that it's a small classroom, it's intimate, it's good education. I joke with my husband that it's like sending our kids to a private school in a public setting," says Ciara Warden, a parent who has two boys in Pre-K and wants to enroll her kids at Crescent next year.
Many parents at the meeting said they also feel blindsided by the news because they only found out about the possibility of the school closing last month.
"We want the board to give us more time. That's all we need. Let us come up with a sustainable plan that could help increase enrollment. I mean, less than a month's notice is not fair," says Warden.
But the Bruckner says the community now has two weeks until the board votes on February 28th. She says that's plenty of time to discuss the possibility of the school closure. "To discuss the closing of a school of 85 students for longer than two weeks is just unnecessary."
If the school closes, it will be the fifth school in the school district to close in the last decade.
