The final approval to close the Clarence C. Brown Education Center was given Thursday by the school’s joint-operating committee.

The committee now is accepting closed bids on the school.

The school, founded nearly 35 years ago, provides alternative and emotional support for special needs students and is run by the Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV of Grove City, which recommended the closing by June 30 due to financial trouble.

Although the MIU IV staffs the school, five school districts own and maintain the building on Pittsburgh Pike Road: Karns City, Mars, Moniteau, Seneca Valley and South Butler.

In 2014-15, the school had 42 students. This year, enrollment is at 15 after the Butler School District opened its own alternative and emotional needs school at the Center Avenue building.

After five students are expected to graduate this year, the school will only have nine students next year so Wayde Killmeyer, the executive director of the MIU, said the MIU recommended closing the school.

While all five school boards already have voted to close the school by June 30, the committee had to vote a final time on the closing, according to solicitor Tom May.

With the building officially closing, the committee must decide how to sell the property.

According to county records, the Clarence Brown school is on 4.87 acres, which is assessed at $189,000, May said. Because that assessment is for tax purposes, the market value of the property is likely 10 times that amount or $1.8 million, May said.

The committee received two appraisals for the property but would not disclose those values. Ritzert said that information would be available later in the sale process.

Although the school districts own the building and some of the property, the MIU IV also owns some furnishings. Decisions about the ownership or sale of those items need to be made by the Butler County Special School Municipal Authority. That authority was created specifically for the Clarence Brown school, but when the school’s debt was paid off, the authority was dissolved, said Eric Ritzert, Karns City Superintendent.

Members on that authority are representatives appointed by the five school districts: William Pettigrew from Mars, Randy Armagost from Moniteau, alternate Cecil Blauser from Moniteau, Frederick Peterson Jr. from Seneca Valley, Erma Mowry from South Butler and James Friters from Karns City.

The authority was previously in place to handle the land and had to be recreated to oversee the property dealings, May said.

“The board is being reconstituted to convey the property,” he said, stressing that only the committee has the power to close the school and decide to sell.

The authority will be responsible for working with the committee to determine what each district receives when the building closes in money and furnishings.

Now, the committee is accepting bids on the property, with a minimum bid of $150,000, May said.

Those bids will be opened at the next meeting for both the committee and the authority at 7 p.m. June 30 at Clarence Brown, 1104 Pittsburgh Pike Road.