In Case You Missed It-Herald Review Reports Eagleview to Close

Eagleview to close at end of this school year
By Marie Nitke
Grand Rapids Herald-Review
Published: Wednesday, February 6, 2008 2:10 PM CST
It’s official -- Eagleview Elementary School will be closed at the end of this school year.

The school’s closing, which officials have been seriously considering for the last two years due to declining enrollment, was the subject of a public hearing last week. When few showed up to the hearing and no one spoke in favor of keeping the school open, the message that Eagleview would likely be closed rang loud and clear.

At a regular meeting of the Independent School District 318 school board on Monday, it was. With little discussion, the school board voted unanimously to close the Squaw Lake school. “I think everything that could be said has been said,” stated board member Tom Peltier. “We’ve spent a long time and a number of years looking at the situation, and I don’t know that there’s anything more that we can say.”

“If we had designed the way things happened, we wouldn’t have designed it this way, but I agree,” added board member Harvey Hietala. “We really don’t have any options in this instance.”

Exactly what will become of the school building is yet to be determined, but members of the Eagleview Community Foundation (ECF) are hoping to gain ownership in order to continue running after-school programs and to keep the community library/technology center open.

Toni Wilcox, who spoke at Monday’s meeting on behalf of the ECF, thanked the board for working cooperatively with the Squaw Lake community to find a solution for the school.

“One of the reasons this hasn’t become a really contentious, pack-the-halls kind of hearing about the closing is because we have had two years of working with the board and with Superintendent (Joe) Silko and the administration to make this transition into not having a school in our community go smoothly,” said Wilcox.

Wilcox admitted that Eagleview has been “struggling” to maintain students as a school, but said it has become “a booming after-school program,” with 60 children registered in a youth development program and 57 different school-aged children regularly using the technology center. In previous discussions, the school board has mulled selling the Eagleview building “as-is” to the ECF so the building can continue to be used for these kinds of programs.

“Looking at a map of the school district,” Wilcox said, “it never made sense for Eagleview to be there, and in the days of open enrollment, it makes even less sense. But we do hope going forward we’ll continue our relationship so that, although you’re not running a school up there, you still feel invested in the education of the kids up there. Because that out-of-school time, in an area where poverty is such an issue, can mean great gains toward not just their (test) scores, but their future in life.”

The eight students remaining at Eagleview will have the option of being bussed to an ISD 318 school or may open enroll into any nearby school district, such as Deer River.

One quibble with this reporting, there are 9 students at Eagleview, not 8.