North School, East School fates considered

In a surprising move at Monday night's School Board meeting, Chairman Larry Kraft accepted an offer to return all the North School property to the family that donated the land decades ago, including the school building. The Board also listened to a plea to wait on closing East school until a new home for the Gateway program can be found.

Transcript of School Board Chairman Larry Kraft
speaking at Oct. 19 School Board meeting:

"Are you aware of an email that Judy Parker Trumail
sent us? Judy spoke here at a meeting a couple times
ago. Said in her email that 'You were given a gift,'
-- she said to the School Board -- 'You were given
a gift, if you don't want it would you consider
giving it back. We the Parker family planned for
it to be used as it was intended in perpetuity.' "

"And if there are no objections from the Board,
I'd like to pass this on to Frank
[Superintendent of Schools Frank Perotti],
if you could have our lawyer contact
Judy Parker and see if we could make that happen."

"Just to clarify, that even if we execute this
agreement and convey the property -- offer to
convey the property back to the Parkers --
it will take a town vote. We as a School Board
cannot convey property without a town vote."

But Kraft stated the Board still remains open to
previous options for getting the School District out
from owning North School property.