Another Keene school sale?

[Kat Kanning]

Keene school sale to be mulled
Head Start asked to look at buying Tilden School
   

Nika Carlson
Sentinel Staff


Echoing a controversial push to sell another district-owned building, a Keene Board of Education committee has asked the early-childhood education program Head Start to ponder buying the building it has occupied for 30 years.

On Tuesday, the full Keene school board will consider a recommendation to extend Head Start?s lease on Tilden School for three years.

The extension gives Head Start officials time to figure out whether they can raise the money to buy the school, said Neil W. Donegan, the school board?s building and facilities committee chairman.

Head Start is a federally funded program for 3- to 5-year-olds. In Cheshire County, Head Start is run by Southwestern Community Services, a Keene-based social-services agency.


      


Officials from Head Start and Southwestern Community Services could not be reached for comment this morning.

The building and facilities committee informally asked Head Start about buying the school in April, when program officials requested an extension on the 15-year, $1-per-year lease, which expires at the end of June, Donegan said this morning.

The committee doesn?t necessarily want Head Start ? ?a great program? ? to vacate Tilden School if it can?t buy the building, he said.

?There are people on the board that would like us to sell off our non-core holdings,? Donegan said, referring to buildings that aren?t used by the school district.

He compared the Head Start request to a contentious effort to sell the district-owned building at 34 West St., which the N.H. School Administrative Unit 29 leases for administrative offices.

Head Start representatives returned to the committee this week, explaining that, though they don?t have the money now, they might apply for a federal grant to study whether they can make the purchase, Donegan said.

Linda W. Mangones, Community Development Block Grant administrator for the city, offered to write the $12,000 grant request. It would have to be approved by both the city and state before it could be submitted, she said.

In 1989, Head Start won a $186,000 federal community development block grant to make improvements to Tilden School, she said.

Given recent cuts to social-services funding, though, ?I don't see any possibility that a really big grant will come and make everyone happy,? Mangones said.

The school board committee recommended the three-year lease extension after a ?long and interesting discussion? about a possible sale, Donegan said.

?Whether or not this is a long shot, I don?t know,? he said.

The Keene school board meets Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Keene High School.

[Russell Kanning]

I like to hear when any government program is feeling a funding pinch.

[Lloyd Danforth]

It would be far more unusual to find a government program, not, feeling a pinch!