MIDDLETOWN — Faced with falling enrollment, Oneida Elementary School will close next June and its students will be assigned to neighboring Amanda Elementary.

        The decision to close and demolish the 48-year-old neighborhood school followed a recommendation by the Middletown City Schools' Facilities Committee, which presented a preliminary report this week.

        The committee also recommended — and the board agreed — that the district should keep its current configuration of K-6 elementary schools, 7-8 middle schools and 9-12 high schools.

        The final report, which could include other consolidations or closings as the district wrestles with a declining enrollment, should be ready next month, said Chairman Tom Wiley.

        In the last 30 years enrollment has dropped nearly 50 percent, going from more than 15,000 in 1970 to about 7,800 this year.

        Only part of the drop can be attributed to the 2000 split when Middletown lost students to the newly created Monroe Local Schools, educators said.

        “It's a very sad thing,” said parent Tammy Hager, who works in the school's computer lab and is secretary to the school's Parent Teacher Organization.

        “My husband, Raymond, went here,” she said. “My daughter went here. My son is a fourth-grader here.”

        Mrs. Hager said she thinks the students will adjust and do fine at Amanda, which is only a mile away. What will be hard, she said, is saying goodbye to colleagues who don't know yet if they will move with the children to Amanda.

        Making a decision about Oneida this early, before the rest of the report is complete, was done to give staff, students and the community time to plan for a smooth transition and move, said Mark Frazer, president of the Middletown Board of Education.

        Letters about the move went home with students Tuesday.

        “Oneida has fifth-generation students. It makes a community,” said board member Katie O'Neil. “The numbers presented are not something new to us. ... We've wrestled with it before.”

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