By Brooke Schultz

MAGNOLIA — The Caesar Rodney School District has officially signed a lease for the former building of St. Thomas More Academy.

The school board voted 4-0 Tuesday to approve the lease, with board member Scott Wilson absent.

“This is some exciting and some really welcome and good news for the district, specifically the middle schools,” said board member Mike Marasco. “Once we get through this pandemic and get back to school normal, we’ll be able to reduce the populations of those schools that have been very much overpopulated prior to the pandemic hitting us.”

The property — the future Magnolia Middle School — would house students in grades six through eight, with a capacity of about 400. Realignment to include the new property is anticipated to begin next academic year.

The leasing of St. Thomas More comes as the district faces high enrollment at two of its middle schools. Postlethwait and Fifer middle schools were both built with a capacity of 700 students. Fifer currently has 900 students enrolled; Postlethwait is at 966.

The district cannot purchase the property without a referendum. The goal of the district is to do just that, using the former Catholic school to expand its footprint, Superintendent Kevin Fitzgerald said previously. But that will require community support. 

The district did succeed in receiving a certificate of necessity from the state that, pending school board approval, allows it to go out to referendum in the next two years to ask voters to support purchasing the building.

St. Thomas More most recently served as a private Catholic school. It shuttered at the end of last academic year due to low enrollment.