By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The Massena Central School board is looking at funding a second study of possible building consolidation.

In 2014, they hired Bruce Fraser from the Rural Schools Association to look at the district’s building arrangement and make recommendations.

He suggested putting grades eight through 12 in the high school and five to seven in what is now J.W. Leary Junior High. Grades two to four and kindergarten through two would be in separate elementary buildings.

On Thursday, school board members said they weren’t happy with his plan and want someone with more expertise to guide them.

“I am completely opposed to Fraser’s recommendation. It doesn’t make pedagogical sense. [A grade] 8 through 12 building doesn’t make sense,” Trustee Loren Fountaine said. “Closing an elementary school would be very difficult for this community to swallow.”

“I think we intended the right step with our Fraser study but maybe asked the wrong question and didn’t get the right answer,” Board President John Boyce said. “What does somebody who’s looked at 100 of these models think is the way to go?”

“We never got any great data on what we were going to save and what the benefits were going to be,” Trustee Kevin Peretta said.

Trustee Pat Brochetti was concerned that the district may not be getting much bang for their buck by paying for a second look at the possibility.

“Let’s see how much a study’s going to cost. We’re not in terrible terrible shape … seems like we study things over and over again without making a decision,” he said.

“We don’t have the expertise to do it ourselves,” Beretta said. “Do we keep status quo forever and ever? No … we need to have someone with knowledge tell us what we need to do and here’s why.”

“We want options, saving and effect … those are the three things we want,” Fountaine said.

The discussion ended with Superintendent Pat Brady telling the board he would draw up and send out a request for proposals.