Center Avenue Community School would be changed back to an elementary school in a scenario favored by parents in the reorganization of the Butler Area School District.

Between all the other school building arguments and ideas, Alice Nunes stuck to a single question.

“What are we going to do with Center Avenue?” Nunes said. “I'm just stunned.”

Repeatedly throughout the Butler Area School District's latest school board meeting, Nunes addressed her fellow board members to ask how a glaring curveball had sneaked its way into their school building debates.

Earlier this year, the school board assembled a large, special committee of teachers, students and parents. They handed off three options for a reorganization of the school district, and told the committee to come back with a recommendation.

Over the weekend, that committee reached its decision: a fourth option, which was a slight modification of one of the three originally passed down from the school board.

That modification is to convert Center Avenue Community School back into an elementary school.

That may sound simple, but it raises a big question: What happens to the network of special education and social services currently operating in the building?

Superintendent Brian White gave a report on the committee's choices. He didn't have a clear answer to that question. Nunes pressed for one.

“What will we do with Center Avenue?” Nunes asked. “What are we going to do with that program?”

White said that was a detail that still needed to be fleshed out.

“You didn't answer my question,” Nunes said, and the room filled with laughter.

Later, White offered his reasoning for not wanting to immediately throw out how switching the school could work.

“There are options,” White said. “But every option is how much do you want to pay? How much can you pay? What makes educational sense? There are options, but they might not all be desirable.”

The reason why Center Avenue's repurposing was added, White said, was to avoid having to add a wing to McQuistion Elementary to accommodate the added students. That might not be needed once administrators crunch their numbers, but the committee felt strongly enough about avoiding a McQuistion addition that it opted to switch Center Avenue over.

Converting Center Avenue is just one component of the option the committee selected.

The group recommended that the school board convert Center Avenue, reopen Broad Street Elementary and put kindergarten through fifth grade in the districts' elementary schools, which would then total eight. Sixth through eighth grades would be in the Intermediate High School building, and ninth through 12th would be in the Senior High School building.

They chose that route over another that would also involve reopening Broad Street Elementary, but wouldn't include Center Avenue changing.

That option would put kindergarten through fourth grades in elementary schools, fifth through eighth in the Intermediate High School building, and ninth through 12th in the Senior High School.

Fifth and sixth grades would occupy one floor at the Intermediate with seventh and eighth grades housed on the other floor of the school.

Much of the school board and White want to continue examining both options.

For what it's worth, Keenan McGaughey, Center Avenue's principal, wasn't concerned by the committee's recommendation. He said he knew administrators would do their homework and figure out the best path forward, rather than haphazardly pushing his school in a new direction or space.

“I think you have to focus on that word: recommendation,” McGaughey said. “I don't have concerns about our program ending. There will be a home for us somewhere.”