School closings meeting: Options in Brookhaven area have problems

The Columbus district laid out the impact of each school-closing option that would affect students in the Brookhaven High School neighborhood today, but officials didn’t pitch any new options.

A school-closings committee is considering three alternatives in the Brookhaven area:

    closing Brookhaven and sending future students to Mifflin High;
    closing Brookhaven and Medina Middle and sending elementary students into other middle and high schools;
    or closing Medina, making Brookhaven a grades 7-12 school and converting nearby elementaries to K-6 buildings.

“All three of these have issues,” said Carole Olshavsky, who oversees district facilities.

Some buildings are too full to accept many more students from the Brookhaven area on the North Side. All three would affect hundreds of students.

An option on the South Side that would close Southmoor Middle, Moler and Heyl elementaries and convert South High to a 7-12 school still seems viable to district officials. Students at Moler and Heyl would be merged and housed in the Southmoor building.

That plan was the only South Side option presented after district officials advised against closing Fairwood or Siebert elementaries, which initially were targeted for closure.

District officials have not said how many schools they want to close or how much money they hope to save, but falling enrollment has spurred the effort to consolidate buildings.

The committee meets again on Monday. Community meetings are to begin in a couple of weeks.

Read more about the discussion in Wednesday's Dispatch .