By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Webster Intermediate School will close to elementary students next year.

The Auburn School Committee voted unanimously Wednesday night to disband the school. Webster’s 240 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders will return to their elementary schools, making all of Auburn’s elementary schools serve students in kindergarten through grade 6 for the first time in years.

“It strikes me it’s a no-brainer in a way,” said School Committee member David Das. “This is what the community said it wants.”

Auburn has six elementary schools and one intermediate school. Half of the elementary schools serve students through grade six. The other half serve students through grade three and send their older students to Webster Intermediate.

The school system has been looking at turning all of its elementary schools into kindergarten-through-grade-6 schools since 1998, when residents said they wanted the change. But some of Auburn’s elementary schools were too small to take kids through grade six. The plan didn’t become feasible until a few years ago when Auburn got state funding to replace the Lake Street School, which had pupils in kindergarten through grade 3, with a bigger facility.

Lake Street’s replacement is being built now on Park Avenue. Next fall, it will open with 330 students through grade six.

School officials say they can then disband Webster and send the students back to East Auburn Community and Washburn Elementary schools. East Auburn and Washburn could accommodate their returning older students by adding a portable classroom or two, Superintendent Barbara Eretzian told the School Committee.

Webster Intermediate, a 90-year-old brick building on Hampshire Street, would be closed to students, but would be used for some other educational purpose, Ereztian said. Officials have not yet outlined specifics. The 1998 master plan called for it to be turned into an adult and community education center.

When Webster is closed to students, staff members will be scattered to other city schools. Officials will tell teachers their new assignments in January.

Webster Principal Vickie Gaylord has been involved with the plan. She called the change “bittersweet.”

Webster school has no play field or other green space and was not built to accommodate young children, she said. But it will be sad to see the school community break up.

“It’s not the building. It’s what’s inside the building that makes the safe haven,” she said.