Thursday, Jun. 18, 2009

Collinsville Unit 10 closes Hollywood Heights Elementary School

CASEYVILLE -- Hollywood Heights Elementary School will not reopen this fall, after at least 50 years of teaching students.

The Collinsville Unit 10 school board approved a plan to shutter Hollywood Heights earlier this week. Superintendent Dennis Craft said Thursday the enrollment at Hollywood Heights was too low to justify keeping the school open, when there was empty space at other schools for the students.

"We don't take this lightly," Craft said. "We had all these pieces falling into place."

Craft said 73 students enrolled at Hollywood Heights for this fall. Of those, only three were kindergartners, and only 45 or so actually reside in the Hollywood Heights neighborhood. The rest are bused in from other, more crowded schools.

"Every neighborhood goes through peaks and valleys (in population)," Craft said. Hollywood Heights' enrollment for the fall had 18 students in first grade, 16 in second, 21 in third and 15 in fourth, with three kindergartners. In comparison, Unit 10's smaller schools such as Jefferson have more than 100.

Unit 10 has nine available classrooms at Caseyville Elementary, so most of the students will go there in kindergarten through third grades. Fourth-graders will go Kreitner Elementary. That includes the new students coming from Fairmont City, including many from the recently closed Holy Rosary School.

Unit 10 had been considering buying the Holy Rosary building for the Fairmont City students, but that will not happen, Craft said. "We definitely had interest, but we couldn't come to terms," he said.

No employees will be laid off from the closure, Craft said. Teachers and assistants will follow the students to their new schools, and support staff will be relocated throughout the district. The cost savings will come from utilities and services for the shuttered school, though no dollar estimate was immediately available.

But Unit 10 will not sell Hollywood Heights, which is in good shape, Craft said. It will remain shut down and secure, but available in the future should the district need it.

The school at 6 N. Oakland is located near the pending Forest Lakes subdivision, a $400 million, 430-acre development that proposed more than 600 luxury homes in north Caseyville.

"They would have gone to Hollywood Heights, but nothing's been built yet," Craft said.