dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com

ANDERSON­, Ind. - The city will have just one high school next school year for the first time in more than 50 years.

The board projects that its decision to consolidate high schools and close four elementary school buildings will save the district $5.22 million annually. Even that is not expected to cover a widening budget deficit due to declines in enrollment and revenue.

Anderson and Highland high school buildings will stay open, though it remains undecided which building will house the high school and which will be the next middle school.

Board member Teddy Bohnenkamp made the motion Tuesday in favor of Option A, which was seconded by Irma Hampton Stewart. Bohnenkamp said the one-high-school option would "create a vision of unity for our community."

Before board members voted, several made comments before an estimated 400 people who gathered at the ACS Administration Building off West 29th Street. None received more applause than board member William Riffe, who listed the pros and cons of both options before saying he favored two high schools.

He urged board members to consider the message the community would be sending by consolidating to one high school.

"We are telling everyone that there is no hope in Anderson," Riffe said.

But under the leadership of incoming Superintendent Felix Chow next year, he said, "We will become a vibrant educational community again. ... The spirit of Anderson is alive."

A continuing decline in enrollment since the 1970s has meant ACS has gone from three high schools to one in little more than a decade. Madison Heights High School closed in 1997 after 40 years.

Board member Irma Hampton Stewart said that the school boards that she has been involved with nearly every year since 1992 had repeatedly made decisions that didn't serve the long-term interests of the school system.

"I understand the sentiment of the community," she said, and a desire to maintain tradition. "Each time we missed an opportunity it was the same cry."

With a new state revenue forecast projecting a shortfall of $1 billion, Stewart said ACS no longer had the luxury of maintaining two high schools for the sake of tradition.

The schools' continually worsening budget crisis meant that if the board failed to consolidate to one school, "week after week, month after month, we will be confronted with the same situation," Stewart said.

Board President P.T. Morgan said after Tuesday's meeting that while patrons of Highland High School have construed the vote as a vote to close Highland, that's not necessarily the case.

Under the plan, both the Anderson and Highland buildings will be open next year. Morgan said no decision has been made on which building will be the high school and which the middle school.

That will take place after the holidays, when the board gets back together with our new superintendent. We have looked at both facilities and for the most part they are almost identical. But in this entire process, since September, not one time has a board member gone on record to say what high school will be closed and what will be open."

For many of the Highland supporters who attended Tuesday's meeting, the vote signaled an end.

Highland junior Kelsey Hall was grief-stricken after the vote. Through tears, she said, "It was a stupid decision on their part." Hall said she feared going to school in crowded classrooms during her senior year.

Kelsey's grandmother, Noreida Hall, noted that her children and grandchildren went to Highland, but she was a graduate of Anderson back when it was the only public high school in the city.

Noreida Hall said she agreed with board member Riffe's advice that if one school is chosen, that a new tradition should begin with new school colors and mascots.

"The children should be the ones to decide that," she said. "I feel like it should be that way. It's their school, not our school."