Don’t give up on a proposed school building project yet, Norwich.

The Board of Education voted 4-4 last week, failing to adopt the recommendations of the School Facilities Review Committee, which for a couple of years has worked on the best means of replacing the city’s oldest schools and organizing a system suited for the 21st century.

Its recommended plan is expensive, no doubt, but it is also creative in its approach to the challenge. The proposal calls for consolidating the city’s elementary schools into four buildings renovated as new. Two of those schools would provide an education for students in kindergarten through second grade, two for students from grades three through six. The recently renovated Kelly Middle School would continue to house grades seven and eight.

Norwich Free Academy serves as the city’s high school.

The plan carries an estimated price tag of $144.5 million, with the local cost $57.6 million after state reimbursement, based on the existing funding formula. A $57.6 million local tax investment for four essentially new schools is arguably a good bargain.

Some of those board members rejecting the recommended plan did not make the case for what was wrong with the concept, aside from citing the cost. Given the extensive study and substantial investment that went into developing the plan, including the $115,000 spent on consulting fees, the decision as to whether that investment in the school system was prudent would be better left to voters.

Moving the proposal along to a citywide vote would have invited a broad debate on the merits, instead of having four people make the decision to block the plan. Recall that in Groton many questioned whether the $184.4 million school project proposed there was too high, including this newspaper, but in November a majority of voters gave their approval.

Granted, school board Vice Chairman Dennis Slopak, who chaired the School Facilities Review Committee, has a different vision for the future of city schools, proposing a single educational campus. But it is also worth noting that the review committee in November voted 6-1 in favor of the recommendation it sent to the school board, with Slopak the lone dissenter.

Mayor Deberey Hinchey, who served on the advisory committee, said she will ask the City Council at its Feb. 6 meeting to disband the review committee. She should not do so. If the mayor does offer the proposal to disband the committee, the council should table or reject it.

While the school board effectively killed the recommendation it received by the 4-4 vote, it could act on a revised recommendation. A joint meeting of the school board and advisory committee — there is some overlap — could potentially lead to an adjustment in the recommendation and gain the additional school board vote necessary to move the measure forward to the council, and eventually voters.

It was only two months ago that the council voted to appoint two teachers and Board of Education Chairman Aaron “Al” Daniels to the School Facilities Review Committee. The council added the teachers after complaints from the Norwich Teachers League about the absence of school staff. Give the reconstituted review committee the chance to find a path to reviving the project.

Admittedly, this is an extremely complex plan, and making adjustments and calculating the corresponding financial implications would not be easy. But there is also some political calculus in play. The goal would to find the path that would allow one of those who voted against a way to credibly alter his or her vote.

It is questionable whether the advisory committee could get a revised recommendation back to the school board, and subsequently win council approval, in time to place a question on the November ballot. But even if the plan is pushed back to another election, keeping the committee together and trying to find a way to move things forward would be preferable to starting from scratch.

Finally, the school board needs a full contingent of nine voting members. Absent from the 4-4 vote was Republican Susan Thomas. Since her election in November 2015, Thomas has missed a lot of meetings. If she cannot meet her obligation, Thomas needs to step down so the council can appoint her placement.