The South Bend School board voted 4 to 3 to close Clay High School.
Members met on Monday night and adopted the recommended facilities master plan that has been the source of controversy since the different scenarios to right-size the school district were reveal earlier this year.
Before the vote was taken, board members heard nearly four hours of public comments from concerned citizens and parents, most of which was against closing Clay.
Other parts of the plan include:
- McKinley moves into Edison, Edison serves as a PreK-8 DLI magnet, McKinley converts to an early childhood center
- Fine Arts program at Clay High School moves to Riley High School
- Clay International Academy remains a district-wide program
- Warren consolidated into Wilson and Harrison
- Existing middle school program at Dickinson consolidated into Navarre. Dickinson becomes a new PreK-8 regional choice for the Washington feeder (DLI program at Harrison moves to Dickinson and expands to PreK-8).
- Marshall serves as the regional K-8 for the Riley feeder
- Kennedy program moves into LaSalle, Kennedy converts to an alternative education program (K-8 alternative and Rise Up)
- Brown converts to administration facility
Clay High School will stay open through the 2023-2024 school year.
4 comments
What the state began in 1958 by taking Penn and Harris townships from the Clay township schools to form PHM was continued in 1981 by tearing apart Clay township and putting it into 3 districts. Now the final nail has come. The students from Clay township will attend either gang infested Riley or gang infested Washington. Adams is overcrowded and probably cannot handle more students. Congratulation to the school board. Dr. Hollis Hughes Jr. is proud of you. You put the final nail in Clay’s coffin. The parents of Clay students should find alternative schools systems that will take your now refugee students. Penn, Glenn, LaVille, Catholic high schools, and Mishawaka should be able to take you in and provide a safe environment for you. Clay pride forever.
Clay High School should have broken off from the South Bend Community School Corporation decades ago. It should have been a separate entity just like Penn, Harris, Madison, School Corporation.
The South Bend Community School Corporation has declining enrollment and has failed academically. So many of the parents I know who live in the S.B.C.S.C. district send their children to other schools. Marion and St Joe High schools are two of them doing a much better job. The Government Woke schools are in big trouble !
SBCSC is a giant dumpster fire dropped into an open septic pit in the middle of a cesspool. I feel bad for the good students at Clay, but those students will find a home elsewhere. This move will just put the students who need teenage daycare in with the rest of the future felons drooling their way to a free diploma in the SBCSC.
So, what Patrick J. Devolder, Adam, and Charles U Farley are saying, is that they bear no personal responsibility for what has taken place and that the only hope for these kids is to keep their environs as white as possible. More red-state secessionist talk from Michiana. Best of luck!