By JESSICA SIEFF
Niles Daily Star

“Quick” and “painful” are two words that could describe the sudden disclosure to parents last week that Eastside School would shutter its doors due to a need for budget cuts in the Niles Community Schools district. The decision, while not final, was solidified Monday night during the district’s board of education meeting.

With that vote, however, many are wondering: now what?

Parents strongly opposed to the closure may be working to fight the decision on their own, but the district still has a big transition period to prepare for and execute as painlessly as possible.

“We have this transition team that’s made up of parents, community, PTO (Parent Teacher Organization), teachers meeting with me and we’ll meet as often as needed to be able to figure out all the details,” Richard Weigel, incoming superintendent for the district, said Tuesday.

Weigel and retiring superintendent Doug Law talked with the Star about what parents and members of the community could expect as the district moves forward.

“Our goal is to make as seamless a transition as possible so it comes out to be a positive piece for the children, No. 1, for the parents, for the teachers, so we don’t interrupt the education of the students,” Weigel said. “We provide the security in the minds of the children, parents and the teachers.”

Security is an ambitious undertaking. Though cuts to the district will affect many aspects of education to Niles students next year, hope for a reprieve sits in the shadow of budget cuts stretching out from Lansing into districts statewide.

“Absent a significant increase in state funding next year, I can’t imagine there would be major adjustments to our budget,” Law said, referring to the proposed budget put before the board Monday night. “Once we start down this road, we’re down this road.”

“It’s my understanding that close to 40 percent of districts (in the state) are closing or considering closing one or more schools” this year, Law said.

“Everybody wants to do what is best for children,” Weigel said. “But we’re constrained when we don’t have the funds to operate the way we’ve been operating. We would like to do more. We would like to keep all of our schools open. We have to live within the budget that the state is providing. If Lansing re-prioritized the education of our children we would have the funding we need.”

There are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding just how the transition for Eastside students will proceed – answers for which will come in time.

At Eastside School, teachers and staff are keeping the education of their students a priority following the events that have taken place over the last week.

“I think it’s been kind of ongoing since, obviously the first day. For the teachers a sad day was last Wednesday,” Eichenberg said. “What I’ve been proud about with the teachers is … they’ve at least made the priority the kids. Their focus is on trying to make the school year from this point forward as normal as possible for the kids.”

Eichenberg said the transition team has already met with the PTO following Monday night’s board meeting, and that he is focusing on not only those parents of current Eastside students, but “there are people in the community, people who are directly involved and people who are indirectly involved (with the school’s history). I’m trying not to leave them totally out either…

“That is a plan so we can kind of bring some closure for those people as well,” he said.
Asked about his reaction to the news of the closing, Eichenberg said, “obviously I was involved in the decision, so it wasn’t like I was totally blinded by the decision. And also this is something that we, even the staff knew this had been talked about in years past.”
Now, the focus is on the future and Eichenberg said at the center of that focus is the students and their parents.

“What I’m trying to do in using that transition team, is that we try to set things up in the fall so that there is not to be too much apprehension or fear,” he said.