Fire Marshal’s Report On Central View School Finds Several Needs

Reopening the unoccupied Central View School building would cost over $2 million.

That is according to a State Fire Marshal’s report. White County Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said in his opinion, making the repairs does not make sense.

“Ultimately, there is no fiscal value in having that school open, and there’s really no academic value,” Dronebarger said. “As we’ve proven over the past four years, we can educate those students very well in other schools.”

Dronebarger said at this point, the school board needs to make a final decision on the building so the system can move forward. The school has been closed for over four years and left vacant during that time.

“It’s really the board’s decision on what they want to do and if they want to take any action on that,” Dronebarger said. “We will see moving forward if they do that.”

Dronebarger said the report showed repairs that the district was already aware of. Some of the most expensive projects include a new roof, kitchen repairs and a resurfaced parking lot.

“I wasn’t personally looking for anything,” Dronebarger said. “This is something that some folks in the community requested that we look into and the board charged us with doing so. I wasn’t really wanting anything from this report.”

The school board moved forward on inspecting the school in May at the request of a citizen. Dronebarger said the findings were shared with that resident.