No decision made yet on building’s future, PHASES will continue in district
By Joseph Goral
Staff Writer
jgoral@mihomepaper.com
LAKE ORION — The Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education supported the administration’s recommendation to close the Oakland County special needs program at Pine Tree Center during its meeting on Jan. 8.
The district will cease hosting the program at the conclusion of the current school year, according to a Pine Tree Center update from LOCS Superintendent Heidi Mercer, who called the decision a difficult one to make that has not been taken lightly.
“A lot of work” will be ahead of LOCS, including working with other districts to transition students, developing a plan for next school year and working with staff, she said.
Parents of students in the program are organizing a group to attend the board’s next meeting, scheduled for Feb. 12, at 6:30 p.m., according to online posts.
Why the recommendation was made
The decision was made because the building is unsustainable for the program – which serves students around the county with “significant needs in the area of autism and emotional impairment,” Mercer said.
The recommendation was brought to the board on Jan. 8 because the county contract for its school centers requires a decision and communication by the end of January if LOCS will close the center for the next school year, Mercer said.
Mercer added that the building’s needs for the program have become more significant each year, saying Pine Tree Center is “not designed for the county population it is intended to serve.”
The Pine Tree Center opened in 1972 as Pine Tree Elementary before it was decided to be repurposed to house the Separate Center Program for All in 2017. Mercer told the Lake Orion Review student needs in the program require specialized equipment, including stronger windows, larger hallways and bathrooms and special doors.
On top of this, she said other centers with similar programs “are very linear and have wings.” The Pine Tree Center is set up in a circle, which makes it hard to separate programming and maintain students in particular areas.
“So, we’re not talking that we can just renovate for your typical elementary (school,)” she said.
Even if the county program was not running in the building, it still needs roofing and other work, Mercer said, adding, “Furthermore, it would not be fiscally responsible for our district to renovate or rebuild.”
She also said LOCS does not have the funding to commit millions of dollars for renovations, or a potential rebuild to properly continue operations as a county center.
If the district decided to renovate or rebuild the building, there would be a process to go through to request the funds. Even with this process, there is no guarantee that the district would receive the funding.
If the district did receive funding, there is a county contract that would commit LOCS to 25 years of running the program – or the district has to pay back the funds. Plus, Mercer said the amount of money that it would take to renovate Pine Tree would “more than likely exceed the amount of funds” that would be able to be contributed.
Board Treasurer Jake Singer called renovations to the building “cost prohibitive” and “not practical,” adding renovating and rebuilding would cost more money than he would be comfortable asking the community to pay for.
If the district decided to use future bond funds on the building, it would mean Orion taxpayers would pay taxes for non-district students.
“In fact, for next year, we would have one (in-district) student in the program, as is projected right now,” Mercer said. “So that’s not a viable option to ask that.”
The district currently serves 15 elementary school students, 14 middle school students and three high school students through the program. Only three of the 32 are in-district students. Mercer says two of the in-district students, both eight graders, have a transition plan. LOCS will work “on some type of programming” for the remaining student for next school year.
No decision made on building’s future
After the board deciding to support the recommendation, and after other districts are informed LOCS will not continue to run the county program, the next step will be to decide what to do with the building.
“The board would have to take action on that,” Mercer said. “But, by us discontinuing the county program, that’s the first step in even allowing us to consider what would be done with the building.”
According to Mercer, the district administration cabinet (superintendent and assistant superintendents) will bring a recommendation to the board on the building’s future.
“(What) I just want to make clear is this, it is not about staff or students,” Mercer said. “The staff have gone above and beyond, and that program has been extremely successful. This is truly a facility issue, which then becomes a financial issue.”
The facility also houses LOCS’s PHASES program, which Mercer said will continue and stay in the district.
“Cabinet is thinking at this point in time that building is one of the oldest in the district,” Mercer said. “It is the building that has had the least renovation at this point in time. At this point, we feel that it would be a conversation and a recommendation that we would bring that the board consider taking that building offline and potentially looking at selling the property.”
If this is the case, LOCS would need to determine where PHASES would go.
Mercer also said LOCS is in communication with Pine Tree Center students’ families.
Board of Education meetings take place at the Administration Building, 315 N. Lapeer St., regularly at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month.
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