Update 12/12/16: The board for Traverse City Area Public Schools votes to redistrict Old Mission Peninsula, sending public schools students on the peninsula to Eastern Elementary School in the fall of 2018. At that time, TCAPS will stop running Old Mission Peninsula School.
Public school students on Old Mission Peninsula will likely go to Eastern Elementary School beginning in fall 2018. Officials for Traverse City Area Public Schools could decide Monday whether to formally redistrict those students to Eastern Elementary School.
Last spring, TCAPS officials agreed to hold off on closing Old Mission Peninsula School and to work with a group trying to save it. The goal was to save the school using private money. But nine months later – with no agreement – TCAPS has to move forward.
"We have moved on to redistricting the boundaries – or will formally do that sometime in the near future – to say that the kids from Old Mission, in the fall of 2018, will be attending as their primary school Eastern Elementary," says Scott Hardy, a TCAPS board member.
TCAPS is also negotiating the sale of the school building to the Old Mission Peninsula Education Foundation. Both parties have made an offer, but an agreement has not been reached.
The foundation formed in September out of a group of community members working to save the school.
"There will be a school on Old Mission Peninsula," says Allison O’Keefe, the president of the foundation, "and we’re going to continue to move forward. Our hope is that we can change TCAPS' mind, but we certainly understand why they had to move forward as far as redistricting goes."
O’Keefe says the foundation is still trying to buy the building to insure that they keep a school in their community. She says if they can’t convince TCAPS to keep running the school, the foundation would pursue other options – like a charter school.
