The Flint (Mich.) school board has told administrators to put together a plan for closing Northwestern High School.
Mlive.com reports that a resolution approved by the board directs the superintendent to develop a plan to close Northwestern at the end of 2017-18 school year and repurpose the facility.
The high school's closure is part of a deficit elimination plan and long-term financial plan.
"To deliver educational programs more efficiently, and to achieve better results at a lower cost, the District needs to align the usage of its facilities with student enrollment," the board agenda stated.
The district fall 2017 student count was 4,553 students, a lower number than the district expected. At its peak enrollment in 1968, the Flint district had 47,687 students.
Multiple campuses have closed and reopened in the Flint school district in the past few decades. Cummings Elementary has been shuttered twice -- in 2008 and 2015. The elementary school reopened in November 2016 to house the Great Expectations Early Childhood Program.
Flint's most recent deficit elimination plan, approved in 2015 by the Michigan Department of Education, states, in part, that closing a school in the 2017-18 school year is part of the cost-cutting measures to eliminate a multi-million dollar budget hole.
Michigan Department of Education officials released a report in December 2016 showing Flint schools had been able to pull itself up and out of a nearly $22 million deficit.
The board's decision to move forward with plans to close Northwestern comes after the district decided earlier this year to merge sports athletic programs at Northwestern High School and Southwestern Classical Academy.
