The Gloucester County School Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to shut down the elementary program at T.C. Walker School as a cost-saving measure. The vote followed recent public sessions in which dozens of Walker parents and representatives of the black community made emotional pleas to keep the small, top-performing K-5 school open.

The closure will disperse Walker’s 58 staff members to other county schools in the fall and force a redistricting of attendance zones that will send its 300 students to different campuses.

School division superintendent Ben Kiser, who looks to drop 40 to 50 employees through attrition by the end of the school year, said no Walker staffers would lose employment due to the re-
arrangement, but they may have new duties in September.

The overall drop in personnel numbers the closure will produce is part of Kiser’s recommended strategy to help meet an anticipated fiscal year 2013 budget shortfall of $2.3 million or more.

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