A 2003 letter to Barbara Gardner’s class signed by President Bush hangs on the wall in the entry.

A football autographed by Tom Osborne sits in the trophy case.

Awards for volunteerism, reading comprehension and a plaque for being a Gold Star school also decorate the opening corridor.

Collectively, these mementos highlight the successes Dawes Middle School has seen in its more than 50 years.

But that history could end if the Lincoln Board of Education decides to close the school after the 2008-2009 school year and send its students elsewhere.

If the school closed — as one two middle school boundary proposals calls for — the building would potentially house at-risk middle school students. A second option would keep the school open.

Though the decision is far from final, Dawes must still battle concerns that almost half its students body will leave for the new Schoo Middle School in northwest Lincoln when it opens for the 2009-2010 school year.

This year’s enrollment of 575 students could shrink to around 300 after Schoo’s opening.

Accountants may not see the benefits in keeping the 50-year-old school open given those numbers.

The school district will spend an estimated $164,000 on busing this year to Dawes, where some students climb on a bus as early as 6:45 a.m. and spend an hour traveling from the northwest Air Park neighborhood.

Sending students to Schoo would cost an estimated $72,000 a year, school district figures show.

And the cost of teaching small elective classes — five students compared to 25, for example — will also be scrutinized.

But what about those intangibles? How valuable, for example, is the familial feel among staff who together endured the loss of former Dawes principal Carmel Sheppard to cancer in 2005?

“We’ve had the grief team out there a few times,” said vocal music teacher Sheila Stutzman, a 12-year veteran of Dawes. “The tragedies we’ve seen have really pulled us together.”

Though teachers are guaranteed jobs in the district, the thought of disbanding is painful to some staff.

Like Nancy Peters, who taught at four other Lincoln schools before coming to Dawes.

“The support doesn’t just extend in a professional way,” the sixth-grade teacher said of her colleagues. “It goes beyond that and I don’t know that you find that very often.“

Students, too, have a deep affinity for the place.

Dustin Kelley’s three older brothers all walked the short distance to Dawes — as he does now.

“It’s a little stupid, if you ask me,” the 12-year-old said Friday as he helped unveil a six-week student garden project outside the school.

Dawes Principal Dave Knudsen understands the battle between nostalgia and prudence.

“The School Board is going to hear a lot of emotional reasons to keep Dawes open,” he said. “There’s probably just not a whole of economic ones.”

Even if the school board decides to keep Dawes open, it wouldn’t be the same, he said.

The school would like to continue offering all the electives it could, Knudsen said, but that may require employing part-time teachers — an option he does not endorse.

It also would be tough to find a full band, form a full choir or compete in intramural sports with schools three times Dawes’ size, Knudsen said.

“It’s almost like a Class A school against a Class B school,” he said.

And there is no reason to believe attendance at Dawes will grow.

About 40 percent of the land within 3,000 feet of Dawes is classified as industrial; 36 percent area is residential.

By comparison, 77 percent of land within 3,000 feet of Lefler Middle School, 1100 S. 48th St., is residential.

“People say there is room to grow, but then all of a sudden it becomes, ‘Do you want to move there?’ and the answer is ‘Um, no,’” Knudsen said.

Enrollment figures from the past decade are steady despite the transfer of ninth-graders to high school in 2004.

At one time, Dawes housed kindergarten through ninth-graders but has since become a traditional sixth- through eighth-grade middle school.

School Board members who came up with the boundary proposals say enrollment projections and a wise use of district money are their only motivation behind the plans.

And they say performance was not a part of their recommendation.

But Dawes ranked second to last in language arts/English (Culler was last), and last in math testing compared to other middle schools, according to 2005-2006 test scores.

And among middle schools, the school has the second largest percentage of free and reduced lunches — a factor Knudsen says affects those scores.

Knudsen said he is certain students at Dawes receive quality education and suggesting otherwise “can’t help but hurt because it’s not true.”

School Board members must now grapple with the attachment to Dawes felt by students, teachers and alumni.

But School Board member Ed Zimmer, who chaired the committee that authored the proposal, said those emotions can’t overwhelm the greater good.

“Of course it’s difficult for individual families,” he said. “But we have the view that we serve districtwide, and that we have to make our decisions in the context of the whole community. We have to ask, ‘Is what’s good for this block best for the whole system?’”

Reach Drew Kerr at (402) 473-7223 or dkerr@journalstar.com.