By Myra Bean

You could have heard a pin drop when members of the Bailey Program Management LLC proposed the closure of Crenshaw Elementary.

The North Panola School Board trustees listened to the comprehensive facility report commissioned by the school district of its buildings in its monthly meeting Tuesday night.

The closing of Crenshaw was the option two of the three option plan given to the district.

The board members had no prior knowledge this was one of the suggestions of the group.

Superintendent Cedric Richardson suggested the board reconvene for a work session Tuesday, March 19, to discuss the plan after everyone has had a chance to read through the report.

Once the date is set, the board will meet.

The Bailey group reported the closing of the Crenshaw campus would save the district about $450,000 per year.

The school now only has 95 children enrolled in grades kindergarten through fifth and project that number to be down to 91 in 2022.  The school has the capacity to house 196 students.

“The school has been losing students every year and there is no indication it will increase in future years,” Bailey group representative said.

All three options presented by the Bailey group included the closing of Crenshaw.

Option 1: Consolidate the district by closing Crenshaw, using Como for K-2 and Green Hill for 3-5 as it is currently happening and addres sall needs at the remaining schools which will cost the district $8,117,400.

Option 2: Consolidate the District by closing Crenshaw using Como for K-2 and Green Hill for 3-5 as is currently happening. Address needs only in this phase at each of the remaining schools. The remaining needs/improvement can be made over time as funding allows. This will cost $5,858,050.

Option 3: Consolidate the district by closing Crenshaw but administrative costs are further reduced by only having one elementary school. Crenshaw will be closed. Additionally, all elementary students will attend one elementary school on the Como Campus. One junior high school at Green Hill site. The high school remains.

This options allows all district students to attend the same elementary, junior high and high school. The cost of this is $10,217,900.

The study contains all the numbers needed for the board to make informed decisions about the future of the North Panola District including projected student enrollments and the renovations of the facilities.

The numbers are itemized throughout the study.

All the buildings are rated from 0 (bad) to 4 (best). With a perfect score of all items at 84, the most any school scored was 47 for North Panola High School. Crenshaw was the lowest at 29.

Como Elementary was 36. Green Hill and North Panola Career-Tech were 32. North Panola Middle was 34.