By Danielle Skinner
WACO- After weeks of emotional meetings, Waco ISD superintendent Dr. Bonnie Cain has a final consolidation plan to recommend to her board.
It includes closing four elementary schools, and merging more than half a dozen other campuses to try to cope with huge budget cuts.
One school has been the center of many heated debates and discussions regarding school budget cuts, and that school is AJ Moore, and in this plan Dr. Bonnie Cain will recommend the board close the school.
If the school were to close, AJ Moore Academy students would then be moved into University High School, all except the JROTC program, which will be moved to Waco High's campus.
She is also recommending that University and Brazos Middle schools close and those students move onto AJ Moore's campus, rather than selling that property. The alternative school campus and the STARS program would consolidate at the former G.I. Wiley building.
Dr. Cain wants to close Sul Ross, Meadow Brook, North Waco, and Viking Hills elementaries. Those students would merge to other campuses. The plan also would move Alta Vista and Lake Waco Montessories to the Lake Air campus.
The plan would also transition all 5th graders to elementary schools and all 6th through 8th graders to middle school campuses.
The superintendent will be presenting this plan to the school board next Tuesday, February 14th. On February 23rd the board will then vote on whether to implement that plan.
