Members of the Niles Community Schools Board of Education will vote Monday on whether or not to reopen Eastside Elementary School, a decision that could undo the emotional one that closed the school’s doors just a year ago.

The board voted to close the school, claiming it would bring the district preliminary savings of more than $650,000, in the first year, with a minimum of savings of $480,000 annually.

So how does the district justify reopening the school with state cuts expected to be worse than last year, forcing a number of cuts?

“We need the space,” Supt. Richard Weigel said. “That’s what it comes down to. When the building was closed, it was closed to save money, but it did impact our other buildings with making them very crowded.”

Changes in offerings of all-day or half-day kindergarten has increased enrollment for next year, and Weigel said both Howard and Ballard elementary schools were already strained for space.

School board president Dana Daniels said aside from the need for space, closing the school did not yield the savings the district was expecting.

“(It) turned out to be $200,000 to $250,000,” he said. “So it didn’t meet the expectations we were told.”

If the vote to reopen the school passes, something Daniels said he would go out on a limb to say is supported by the board, Eastside would reopen as a magnet school.

A proposition to open the school as a New Tech preparatory school was not received well during meetings with parents and members of the community, leading officials to go with the magnet school option.

But the school, Daniels said, “will be a magnet school for New Tech.”

The curriculum will be focused on 21st century learning and project based learning in conjunction with MEAP (Michigan Education Assessment Program), he said, for grades K-5.

Since talk of reopening the school began earlier this year, a number of committees have been formed to look at strategic and financial factors of reopening the school as well as the overall purpose.

Niles Community Development Director Juan Ganum is one member of the project’s steering committee.

“I think it’s a great decision to reopen the school,” Ganum said. “As the planner for Niles, the alternative is to have a very large, institutional building decaying potentially in a neighborhood. That’s one negative. The benefits to reopening the school far outweighs the costs, in my opinion.”

When the board made the decision to close the school last year, it was amidst strong protest from parents and members of the Eastside community who had emotional ties to the school.

One parent is Samantha Thalman, also on the steering committee.

“I think it’s so important just to have the doors of that school open,” she said. “I was one that criticized them for closing it and I think it should have never been closed to begin with.

“To have (the school) open again, I see it as being back where we’re supposed to be,” Thalman said. “I don’t see it as an added cost in that way.”

Thalman’s son was sent to Howard School after Eastside closed.

“He’s doing great,” she said. “Kids are so resilient. I’m very proud of the way he’s handled the transition. But he’s going to an unfamiliar place and these teachers don’t smile at him around every corner like they know him … The whole cafeteria (at Eastside) sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. He doesn’t have a home away from home.”

But Daniels said the board went into considering the option of reopening the school “from a standpoint that it need to be cost neutral.”

That means the school will not have a principal at the building, but a lead teacher. It is possible another principal within the district will split time between two schools. There will also be no bus service to the school, so students will have to be driven by parents or they can walk to school.

Parents who wish to enroll their students at Eastside, Weigel said, will also have to dedicate themselves to a certain amount of volunteer service. Daniels said there are already more than 100 volunteers willing to help out with preparing the school to reopen. Some committees are even looking to local businesses for donations. Those that donate would be acknowledged, for example, with a room dedicated to them at the school.

Daniels also said Weigel was looking into the option of leasing out Eastside’s second floor, possibly to Lake Michigan College or Western Michigan University. LMC could use the space for adult learning.

All are specifics that are yet to be determined, yet Monday’s vote would be the green light, should the option pass, to go full-speed ahead with reopening the doors of Eastside for the next school year.

The Niles Community Schools Board of Education meetings are held at 7 p.m. at the Westside Administration Building.