It’s all over but the crying for students and parents with a soft spot in their hearts for Clover Valley Elementary School.

In the next few weeks, a series of meetings concerning the future of Clover Valley Elementary School will take place.

The Oak Harbor School Board will make a decision next month on whether to close the school, but the verdict appears to be preordained.

Many parents suspect as much, and are telling their children to get ready to attend a different school next fall.

“I think they’ve already made up their minds,” said Trina Daugherty, mother of a fifth-grader attending Clover Valley. “I don’t think there is any way out of it.”

Nobody disputed that theory, including Superintendent of Schools Rick Schulte who pretty much acknowledged the inevitable.

Oak Harbor school officials are contemplating closing the school because enrollment has fallen every year for the past seven years. Enrollment reached a high of 6,036 in the 1999-2000 school year before falling to its current level of approximately 5,300 students. The school district projects enrollment will dip below 5,000 students by the 2010-2011 school year.

Closing the school will help the district resolve an estimated $3.5 million budget shortfall in the coming months or perhaps make room for other programs.

The budget shortfall was caused by revenue losses due to declining enrollment, depleted fund reserves and increased employee costs.

Should Clover Valley close, the school district would save approximately $546,000.

The school was placed on the chopping block because, with approximately 315 students, it has the fewest students of the district’s six elementary schools and the highest number of students who need a bus or car to get to school.

“It’s inevitable that Clover Valley is going to close,” Schulte told the crowd of 100 or more who attended a meeting Wednesday night in the school’s gym.

Parent Jamie Mami said Clover Valley’s small size is one of the things she likes about the school.

Emotions ran high at the meeting because many parents don’t want the school to close. They don’t want to send their kids to another school, and some had fond feelings for Clover Valley because they attended the school when they were children.

But the feeling that the decision has essentially been made was palpable.

“They’ve already made up their minds,” said Cynthia Peterson, who has two children attending classes at the school, echoing Daugherty’s statement.

Talk about the possible closure has already affected students in the classroom, some say.

“I had my first-grader ask ‘where am I going to school next year Mom,’” said Michelle Rogers. She also questioned whether enrollment in the schools will continue to drop considering preschools in the area are full and have waiting lists.

Schulte was on hand to explain the district’s rationale for considering such an action.

“Enrollment is going down and I don’t have any reason to believe that’s going to change,” Schulte said.

He added that closing the school has nothing to do with the school’s condition..

“This is not a reflection on the quality of any school. It is a reflection on the numbers,” Schulte said.

The superintendent told the crowd that closing Clover Valley has been an option for the past several years but the school district didn’t follow through with that idea until this year.

At least one parent wishes the school district had told the parents earlier.

“They should have brought this to us (before),” said Shannon McMurdo, who has a second-grader and a fourth-grader attending Clover Valley. Had she known, she said she would have transferred her children to a different school years ago.

Should the school district close Clover Valley Elementary, it won’t remain empty.

The district is only five years into a 25-year lease with the Navy for the school, which is situated next to the base’s main gate. One of the requirements of the lease says the building, which sits on 15 acres, has to be used for educational purposes. The school was built in 1951 and then renovated in 2001.

The current school is the third one in the history of Clover Valley. The first one was a pioneer school built in the 1880s and later closed. The second one was built in 1905 and closed in 1929.

Clover Valley was a thriving farming community before the Navy took over.

Although no decisions have been made about a future use of the school, officials are tossing around several ideas. It could become a place to meet for the homeschoolers’ HomeConnection program or a new home for the alternative Midway High School.

The school district could also use the building as a temporary home for freshmen during the upcoming renovation of Oak Harbor High School.

The students would spend a half day at Clover Valley where they would take their core classes, and then take their lunch, labs and career-tech classes at Oak Harbor High School.

McMurdo said it doesn’t make any sense to close the elementary school and turn around to use it as a school for other students.

Wednesday’s meeting was the latest in a series regarding Clover Valley’s future.

The Oak Harbor School Board will discuss the possibility of closing the school during its Monday, Jan. 29 meeting, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the district’s Administrative Service Center.

The school district will schedule a formal public hearing in front of the school board sometime in February.

The board is scheduled to decide whether to close Clover Valley Elementary during its Feb. 26 meeting.

Should the board approve the school’s closure, a committee will meet in March to redraw school boundaries. A public hearing will take place in April concerning recommended changes.

Families would be notified in April and May of the new boundaries and how they might affect where their children go to school next year.