The Lawrence school district will hold onto a closed elementary school for its purposes instead of leasing it or turning it over for other uses.

Community groups had submitted proposals to the Lawrence school board asking to lease the building that used to house Centennial School, which closed in May 2003. The Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department also submitted a proposal to use the school’s gymnasium for a gymnastics program. The Boys & Girls Club had another proposal to use the former school, 2145 La.

Board members indicated they weren’t interested in entering into a long-term lease agreement but took no formal action during their meeting Monday.

“We don’t want to jump into making commitments to another group without having a sense of what our needs are,” said Leni Salkind, board president. “We’ve made that mistake before, where we’ve worried about leaving an empty space rather than take the time to examine our own needs.”

There was some discussion that Centennial could be used as a base for the Lawrence Virtual School or to house some vocational programs.

Lawrence Supt. Randy Weseman said Tuesday that Centennial was centrally located and could be used in a variety of ways. He noted that the Diploma Completion Program was located in The Malls shopping center. It possibly could be moved to Centennial.

Placing the Virtual School in the building also is a good option, he said.

“A virtual school is technically in cyberspace, but there are human beings behind it,” Weseman said.

He said the Virtual School likely would only take up 15 to 20 percent of Centennial, though Virtual School principal Gary Lewis was developing an assessment of space needs.

Board member Linda Robinson asked whether it was possible to rent out the building at certain times of the day.

Weseman said it appeared that each group’s use of the facility would be full-time, based on the submitted proposals.