FAIRHOPE, Ala. - After hearing Monday night that Dr. Alan Lee, the superintendent of Baldwin County Schools, would recommend closing the Fairhope Kindergarten Center, the City Council approved a resolution to send a letter to the school board to keep the school open.

About 30 people turned out Monday for a public participation session prior to the council meeting, and several spoke in favor of keeping the historic school in downtown Fairhope open.

Fairhope resident and K Center teacher Cassandra Jones displayed a petition with 500 signatures to “Save the K Center,” which she said had been gathered in a few days.

Councilman Dan Stankoski recommended that the group show up at the next school board meeting with several hundred people – such as turned out for a recent meeting at Fairhope Elementary School to hear from Lee about the future of the K Center – to support keeping the school open.

At that time in the meeting, Leslie Anne Tarabella, a leader of a group of parents seeking to keep the K Center open, stood up and told the council that Lee had met with K Center Principal Patricia Carlton earlier that day to let her know he would be recommending the school’s closure.

“This is a sad day for the city and children of Fairhope,” Tarabella said in a prepared statement. “Money is being used as an excuse, but the figures given by the school board are greatly exaggerated. The Baldwin County Board of Education has repeatedly refused to provide an updated itemized list of savings to substantiate their claim.”

Carlton said Lee told her that he would be making that recommendation at tomorrow’s school board meeting on Thursday, March 17.

At its regular meeting Monday night, which followed the public participation session, the council adopted a resolution to send a letter to the school in support of keeping the school open.

At about that same time Monday night, the school board was meeting in a work session and heard from Lee about the K Center

“His recommendation is to move the approximately 240 kindergarten students at the Kindergarten Center to the new Fairhope Elementary School which would constitute a savings of about $720,000 annually,” school board spokesman Terry Wilhite said. “Dr. Lee told the board at the Monday night work session that he didn’t want to sell the property because he felt like one day growth in the Fairhope feeder pattern might warrant revisiting the facility.”

The Baldwin County School Board will vote on the recommendation tomorrow night at its regularly scheduled meeting at 6:30 p.m. in Bay Minette, Wilhite said.