By Courtney L. Anderson
SHARON — Today�s Sharon school board work session agenda does not include discussion about the seemingly stalled Case Avenue Elementary building project, but Superintendent John Sarandrea said there�s a �100 percent� chance the topic will come up.
Last month school directors tabled a vote on whether to tear down Case and rebuild in the same location or buy back the former Hadley Elementary on Boyd Drive and expand it.
Sarandrea said he didn�t know if the topic would come up for a vote again at the Aug. 17 regular meeting. It depends on where tonight�s discussion goes, he said.
Over the past few months, citizens have weighed in on the district�s options at a number of public meetings. Popular opinion seems to lie against moving the school to the Hermitage border and for keeping the site next to the high school.
A trip through The Herald archives shows the same reaction 25 years ago when the district closed Hadley.
In 1983, Sharon school directors shut down three neighborhood schools � Hadley, Wengler and Gamble � and moved those students to the Case Avenue building.
Case, built in 1923 as the high school, was the junior high at the time, and the move sent seventh and eighth grades to the current high school.
A decline in enrollment, an increase in operating costs and a budget deficit of $1 million led to the decision, which came on the heels of cutting 50 teaching jobs over two years.
Parents crowded emotional meetings protesting a plan to close smaller schools. One group hired an attorney and conducted a poll that showed three-fourths of those who responded wanted to keep the elementary schools open. One man described the final unanimous vote in favor of the closings as �radical� and �thoughtless.�
They were worried about the safety of kids walking to Case and lamented that the students would have to walk farther. Another concern for the youngsters was the switch from a tightknit environment to a bigger setting.
Those parents even sought an injunction in Mercer County Common Pleas Court to stop the change, but a judge dismissed it.
A consultant hired to do a feasibility study at that time actually recommended the district close the building at East State Street and Case Avenue and to keep the smaller schools open.
The board didn�t bite on that suggestion, likely because $3 million was spent to renovate Case in 1977, and the high school had room for more students.
Two years after the consolidation, then-Superintendent Donald B. Thomas told The Herald it �worked out beautifully.�
�People are happy and what has happened educationally has been positive,� he said.
In 1986, the district sold Hadley to Richard P. and Patricia McMahon who had been leasing the building for a business school since 1983. The McMahons paid the district $215,000.
The deed included a restriction that said the district had first rights to buy the building back if the McMahons decided to sell it within eight years. In 1992 there was talk of moving preschool programs and junior high students to Hadley, but that never happened.
When the clause expired in 1994, rumors surfaced that the district wanted to buy the building back. The then-school board president said that wasn�t going to happen, according to Herald files.
In 1987, Gamble was sold to the Salvation Army, also to public outcry, and Wengler was purchased by Continental Film Group, the production company behind the Patrick Swayze film �Tiger Warsaw,� which was filmed in the Shenango Valley, including inside the school building.
A story in The Herald in November 1954 proclaimed that the district would �have housing woes for years� due to the growing number of students. At the time, Gamble was being built on Fisher Hill at the north end of town, and plans to construct Hadley were under way on the east side. Those two were not expected to hold all the students.
When the three schools were closed in 1983, there were 2,800 students in Sharon.
In 1995, a study recommended the district add another elementary school, possibly by buying back Wengler or Gamble, and expand Musser and West Hill. At the time, student enrollment was 2,621 and projected to hit 2,922 by 2004.
The districted reported an enrollment of 2,274 students in 2008-2009.
