Topeka ? The Kansas State Historical Society says it won’t allow city officials to demolish the former all-white school that was at the center of the Brown v. Board of Education case.

The Topeka City Council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to begin the destruction, but the historical society contends that a 2002 agreement requires the city to preserve the structure until 2012.

To change the building’s architectural appearance and structural integrity, the city needs the historical society’s permission, said Patrick Zollner, the state agency’s director of historic preservation.

The covenant, signed by then-Topeka Mayor Butch Felker on Aug. 29, 2002, can be amended or released only by mutual written agreement.

“The society would never consent to the demolition of Sumner School,” Zollner said Thursday.

Council and city staff members have said they would like to save the Sumner Elementary School building, but the cost to the city has forced them to consider other options. A formal council vote is still needed for the two-story brick structure to be torn down.

The art deco building became a symbol of civil rights history when Oliver Brown, a black minister, tried to enroll his daughter in Sumner School in 1950.

When the school turned them away, the Browns filed a lawsuit that would eventually lead to the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case.

The school was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 and remained open until 1996, when the school district closed it.

Two groups are seeking to save the structure, and city officials said they plan to give them five months to prove their financial capabilities to acquire and renovate the building.