Bedford school board member voted unanimously to close Temperance Road Elementary. The decision came late Thursday night.
School leaders met with teachers and parents Wednesday night about a proposal to close the school. Emotions ran high as parents, teachers and members of the community learned the fate of the school.
District leaders say the move is part of it's 5-year deficit elimination plan put in place by the state. The interim superintendent told the large crowd dropping enrollment and drastic cuts to state funding are the reasons the district has a deficit.
In order to end 2012 in the black, the doors have to close.
"It's not anything that we want to do, we are being forced to do it," Jon White, Interim Superintendent of Bedford Public Schools said.
White calls the funding cuts and enrollment drops catastrophic. But he says there are no other options to make up the difference.
Closing Temperance Road also means some teachers and staff could lose their jobs.
"Unfortunately in the school business, when you talk about saving money you talk about laying people off," White said.
Parents are frustrating and want answers.
"I'm just dumb founded and more concerned about my kids and their well being," Trilby M. Fox, a mother of two said.
She has two children at Temperance Road. Under the plan, current students will be moved to one of the other buildings. She says the idea of switching is upsetting.
"It breaks my heart," she said fighting back tears. "I'm angry, I'm hurt, I feel betrayed, I feel like this whole town is falling apart."
School leaders say they chose Temperance because it was the smallest of the grade schools and if they closed another building instead, it couldn't absorb the extra students.
The closure will save about $850,000.
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