By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
After 100 years, Lincoln Elementary School will close at the end of this school year.
The Hays USD 489 school board voted to close the school at its board meeting on Monday.
Voters passed a $143 million bond issue in 2022. Lincoln is the oldest operating school in the district and needs significant repairs.
When the committee that recommended the bond reviewed the district schools and their future needs, the members determined that renovating Lincoln would be too costly.
The district is building a new high school, renovating the current high school into a middle school and converting the current middle school into a new elementary school.
O'Loughlin Elementary School is being expanded and remodeled. An addition and renovations at Roosevelt Elementary School are almost complete.
Wilson Elementary School is set to be closed as an elementary school at the end of the 2025-26 school year. Rockwell Administration Center will also close, and those offices will likely relocate to Wilson.
The students attending Lincoln and Wilson will be relocated to the other schools in the district.
District leaders have expressed intent to sell Lincoln and Rockwell once they are vacated. However, the board has not made any final decisions on the fate of those two buildings.
Revenue from the sale of those buildings could go back into bond projects or be used to pay down the bond.
Board member Allen Park voted against the closure. He said he wished to retain neighborhood schools.
Park said he feared families would leave the district because they didn't want their children to attend larger schools.
Roosevelt and Felten Elementary School, which will be in the former middle school, will both be able to accommodate four classes of each grade. O'Loughlin will remain a three-section school. Lincoln is only a two-section school.
Park suggested Lincoln be used for a magnet school.
However, board member Ruth Ruder said the district doesn't have the money to hire more teachers to staff Lincoln or for the utilities and insurance to keep the building open.
"Moving forward, it's not feasible," she said. ... "Keeping Lincoln open was never part of the plan, to my understanding."