CECILIA, Ky. (WDRB) -- Parents have launched an online petition effort to save Cecilia Valley Elementary as the Hardin County school district considers redistricting.
There are 800 names signed to the change.org campaign to keep Cecilia Valley as an elementary school.
"I'm emotional, and I'm concerned about it," said Crystal Powell, the mother of a second grade student at Cecilia Valley Elementary who started the online effort. "People want the best for their children."
Cecilia Valley opened in January of 2018, but it only has about 350 kids. Now, Hardin County schools is considering a switch that would change Cecilia Valley Elementary School to the West Hardin Middle School campus. The move would split the current student body of Cecilia Valley between Lakewood and Creekside Elementary.
"The thing with a petition is you get one side of the story," Hardin County Superintendent Terrie Morgan said. "You don't get the other side of the story."
To Morgan, the numbers are the other side of the story. The district is forecasting fewer students at the three rural elementary schools. West Hardin Middle School has more than 500 kids in a school built in the 1950s.
"We have to look at the district site," Morgan said. "We cannot limit ourselves to just one school. We have to look at the entire Hardin County, north to south, 41 miles and what is the best decision we can make for every student in Hardin County," Morgan said.
Other ideas on the table include building a new middle school or making Cecilia Valley Elementary School a school for pre-kindergartners through eighth grade.
There's also a plan to move just 6th grade into the elementary school and build another campus at the Cecilia Valley site for a West Hardin Middle School for 7th and 8th graders.
Another proposal would convert Lakewood elementary to a middle school.
None of the other plans had as much supports as the switch Cecilia Valley parents are petitioning against during a local planning committee meeting Monday. That's what prompted the petition.
"It's a little disheartening when you are promised something, and you get it, and it wants to be taken away," Cecilia Valley Elementary parent Michael Roberts said.
For many in the community, the schooling matter is a deep personal issue as Cecilia Valley Elementary School emerged after Howe Valley Elementary School closed. It was the oldest school in the district.
"This one is newer and bigger, way bigger," 4th grader Kylie Overly said. She attended both Howe Valley and made the switch to Cecilia Valley after the $15 million elementary school opened last year.
"I don't really want to move, because we have a homey feeling, and it's just so hard to get it back," Overly said.
The five different options range in cost from $3 million to $20 million according to school district reports. There will be at least two more meetings, one of which will include a public forum before the local planning committee makes a recommendation to the Hardin County School board.
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