HARDIN COUNTY, Ky. — It can be jarring to hear your child's school may be closing, even if it's more of an idea right now than any concrete plan. But that's where parents of Cecilia Valley Elementary School in Hardin County find themselves right now.
"We want to see all the elementary schools stay open," Courtney Overly, a parent of two students at Cecilia Valley Elementary School, said. "We don't want to see our faculty and staff lose jobs because that would essentially happen if they closed Cecilia Valley."
It may still be early in the process but parents like Overly said they want to make sure their voices are heard from the beginning and throughout in support of their school. The Hardin County Schools local planning committee, a 20-person group made up of school administrators, teachers, parents and community members, is looking at closing Cecilia Valley as one of five possible solutions to a big two-part problem.
The first problem, according to Hardin County Schools spokesperson John Wright, is the declining enrollment at two schools: Lakewood Elementary and Creekside Elementary. According to Wright, the lower numbers are a result of a lack of new homes in the area.
"When homes don't get built and as children age, obviously there's no children there to replace them, so the enrollment keeps declining," he said.
The second problem, the aging West Hardin Middle School building.
"When you have 600 of your closest friends over every day for eight hours a day for 50-some years, 60 years, almost 70, it sees some wear and tear," Wright said.
According to Wright, the original plan called for West Hardin Middle School to be added into Cecilia Valley, which had initially generated some backlash when it was introduced several years earlier.
"It had some opposition from some folks that really didn't think that 8th graders should be in the same facility as kindergartners or preschoolers," he said.
That option still remains on the table. Other options include:
- Converting Lakewood into West Hardin and sending the Lakewood students to Creekside and Cecilia Valley.
- Turning Cecilia Valley into a preschool through sixth grade program and then constructing another building for the seventh and eighth grade students on campus.
- Building a new building for West Hardin Middle School.
- Moving West Hardin into Cecilia Valley and sending Cecilia Valley students to Creekside and Lakewood.
"We are not opposed at all to having more students at our school," Overly said. "Also at Lakewood, we don't want to see them closed down either because then it would be the same situation we're in."