The Center and Monaca school boards were hailed as trailblazers in October, when they voted to consolidate into one new school district.

But the trail has been strewn with rocks, and it may come to a dead end this week. The Monaca board has been on hold for five months, waiting for the Center board to move ahead, and it can wait no longer.

"We've got to go forward with what we need to do for our own kids," Monaca board President Bill Temple said.

Monaca has a plan to realign its elementary schools and needs to decide this week whether to launch it for the fall.

If the Center board votes Thursday to go with the original consolidation plan, the Monaca board would likely drop the realignmentbecause Monaca's children would be moving into Center's elementary schools in fall 2009. If the Center board takes no action or votes for an alternative plan, the Monaca board would likely launch the realignment.

Doing that, though, "would in effect be putting consolidation on hold for two years," Superintendent Mike Thomas told the Monaca board last week.

Realigning this year and consolidating next year would mean moving children now attending kindergarten in two straight years, he said. Board members agreed they would not do that.

The decision, then, rests in Center's hands. On the surface, it appears to be an easy one, but the Center board's actions in the last five months have left the issue in doubt.

The original plan called for the districts to consolidate July 1, then spend a year in planning before launching combined classes in fall 2009. Elementary students were to be combined in Center's elementary schools, with grades 6-8 using Monaca's middle/high school as a middle school and 9-12 at what is now Center's middle/high school.

That plan offers about $1.5 million in annual savings and is likely to yield a tax cut of up to five mills to property owners in Center. It would put all of the new district's children in buildings with extra space and ample facilities. It also would create a free-standing middle school, which neither district has now.

The plan is favored by both districts' superintendents, both of the consultants who studied the districts and the advisory group assembled to lead the consolidation. It also got a unanimous thumbs-up at a meeting of Beaver County school superintendents.

But a five-member majority that has been driving decisions by the Center board is poised to approve a plan of its own that would eliminate the middle school and bring all Monaca students into Center's schools.

That plan would save as much as $450,000 more by closing Monaca's high school building. But consultants who have studied the districts as part of the consolidation proposal said it would overcrowd the high school, and they frowned on housing middle- and high-school students in the same building.

"I'm a middle school guy," consultant Dan Dancu said at a recent Center board meeting. "That's a crucial developmental stage, and kids that age really benefit from having a school of their own."

He said a middle school can be operated within a larger building, but it is easier to do in a separate one.

Monaca's middle/high school building would, in the opinion of consultant Don Boyer, make an ideal middle school in a consolidated district. That would be the building's use under the original consolidation plan.

"You could move in tomorrow morning, and you wouldn't need to do a thing," he told the Center board at the same meeting.

Children in grades 6-8 would have a building of their own, complete with auditorium, gymnasium, library, computer labs, art room, band room, choir room, updated athletic fields and possibly their own football stadium. The building was constructed in 1964, but has been well-maintained and is in good shape, Dr. Boyer said.

Having the middle school there, meanwhile, would free up Center's middle/high school for use solely as a high school, with space for videoconferencing centers, dedicated foreign language rooms, art rooms and meeting areas, two gyms and an extra library.

"It gives you space to be innovative, to do a lot of programming you couldn't do otherwise," Center Superintendent Dan Matsook said.

"I have looked and looked and looked for educational advantages in [the Center board's] plan," Monaca superintendent Mike Thomas said, "but I can't find any. . .

"The original plan offers unique educational opportunities, unlike anything anyone has around here. If you have a chance to do something like that, you'd be crazy not to do it."

But Ben Fratangeli, one of the five men forming the Center board's majority, has said he is drawn to the alternative plan because of the extra savings.

"My interest is in being financially responsible now and for the future," he said at the Center board's public meeting May 8.

Mr. Fratangeli also noted that both districts are losing enrollment -- the primary reason they are talking about consolidation in the first place. He questioned whether the combined district would have enough students over the next five to 10 years to make a middle school worthwhile.

He also has repeatedly expressed concern that the Monaca high school building might need to be renovated.

The report Dr. Boyer gave in September says the building is in need of work that would cost $6.6 million to $12.2 million. Dr. Boyer told the Center board last month, however, that the figure was based on converting the building for use as a K-12 school, and that it would need no work to serve as a middle school.

But neither finances nor the viability of Monaca's high school building were cited two months ago when the majority members proposed a different consolidation plan that would have cost more than the original one and would have kept Monaca's high school building open.

At a private meeting March 11 that included superintendents and board presidents from both districts and one member from each district board, Center President Richard "Bucky" Nicastro offered a written plan that would have converted Monaca's high school to aK-6 elementary for all Monaca children. Center children would have stayed in Center schools and children from both districts would have shared Center's middle/high school under that plan's conditions.

That plan would have cost more than the original one, requiring conversion of Monaca's high school for use by smaller children and the addition of three or four staff members.

At the time, Mr. Fratangeli dismissed the extra staffing cost -- estimated at $300,000 to $600,000 by Dr. Thomas -- as "minimal."

Monaca responded to that proposal with a long list of educational concerns and the Center majority dropped it. But it fueled speculation of bloggers, who for months have questioned the intentions of the Center board majority.

The motivation may go back to last year's election, when Center voters ousted five pro-consolidation incumbents. New board members said they were not opposed to consolidation, but wanted more time to study the issue and gather information for themselves.

Since then, however, their actions have choked off the flow of informationto the board and to the public.

After the board nearly withdrew the consolidation application in December, Mr. Nicastro issued a letter ordering administrators to stop meeting with state officials and Monaca's board. In his letter, Mr. Nicastro also said he alone would schedule any future meetings on the consolidation plan. No joint meetings of the boards' merger committees or of the full boards have been held since then.

A number of the majority's decisions - including the elements of the March proposal and the current one - have been made privately, with no public discussion. Pro-consolidation board members Charlene Kosmal and Rob Gradisek have said they were not included in those discussions.

Many bloggers and Monaca residents who have spoken at board meetings contend that a number of residents of growing, suburban Center look down their noses at urban, industrial Monaca, and don't want to send their children into Monaca to go to school.

"They just want to absorb Monaca and make us go away," Mr. Temple said.

The original consolidation plan would send Center children into Monaca for middle school. Both Center plans would keep Center kids in Center schools, avoiding sending them across the border.

"You're going to have to start doing the right things for the right reasons," former Center Superintendent Edward Elder told the board at its most recent meeting.

"Our kids are the single greatest resource we have in our nation. Don't talk to me about petroleum or precious metals. Our kids are the problem-solvers of the next generation. You are responsible for seeing that they have a good curriculum."

Then Dr. Elder quoted a banner he'd had in the school in his day: "If you're standing still, you're falling behind."

"Center board," he said, "you're falling behind."

Monaca board members, meanwhile, have tentatively scheduled a special meeting to follow Center's meeting. They are expected to approve the elementary realignment plan and the two-year consolidation hold if they don't get the answer they've been waiting for.

"We have to move ahead," Mr. Temple said.