Waterford — The Dual Language & Arts Magnet Middle School is ending an eight-year run in Waterford and will close its doors at the end of the school year.

Students' families were notified of the decision in a letter on Friday.

LEARN, which operates the school at 51 Daniels Ave. in addition to six other magnet schools, cited deteriorating conditions of the building and lack of money for renovations, combined with its inability to hit enrollment targets because of the opening of other theme-based school programs in the area.

LEARN is a regional educational service center based in Old Lyme. Its executive director, Kate Ericson, said repeated attempts to obtain money from the state Department of Education for renovations — a new roof and boiler — and to find a new location have been unsuccessful.

“The fact of the matter is the state of Connecticut does not have any money available for magnet school construction projects,” she said.

As many as 14 school staff members will be seeking new jobs with the closing. Ericson said LEARN is “committed to supporting them with openings at other programs” but cannot make any guarantees. A special education program run at the school will be shifted to the Ocean Avenue LEARNing Academy in New London.

“This is really hard and not something we wanted to do,” said Ericson, who took over as LEARN’s executive director last year.

“It does hurt the LEARN program to lose our middle school. We’ve reached out to area superintendents, State Department of Education and tried to be as innovative as possible. I’ve run out of viable solutions,” she said.

About 148 children from across the region, including 75 from New London and 33 from Norwich, attend the sixth- through eighth-grade school, originally founded by New London Public Schools as an option for students leaving programs at Jennings Elementary School and the Multicultural Magnet School.

Parents of sixth- and seventh-graders at the school will be given the option to send their children to East Hartford to finish their middle school experience. The state has given LEARN permission to move the programs to the campus of Goodwin University, LEARN’s partner, for the next two years, where they will have access to Goodwin’s Connecticut River Academy’s environmental and advanced manufacturing programming.

Sending students to East Hartford might not be the most attractive choice for parents, Ericson admits, but it was the only viable option LEARN was able to come up with. LEARN would offer a bus in Waterford and Norwich, depending on the level of interest.

LEARN will gauge that interest during three upcoming information sessions and an online survey. The information sessions will be held at the school at 6 p.m. on Thursday and 7:30 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. on Friday.

“This is not an easy choice for families, obviously,” Ericson said. “Going to East Hartford was not in their plans but we’re trying to fulfill our promise to these families. We’re trying to find a solution that can work.”

Ericson said the Waterford location, the former Southwest Elementary School, was never meant to be a permanent location for the program. LEARN has been in talks with a dozen different school districts through the years about leasing space, including Lyme Academy and Fitch Middle School in Groton.

“For various reasons, none of the places we searched worked out,” she said. “I’m at a point where we’ve exhausted our search.”

Also during that time, Ericson said the landscape of school options for students has changed, along with magnet construction funding. Norwich, Groton and New London all now offer theme-based programs. The Dual Language school was not able to hit its magnet lottery numbers over the past two years and also had lost key Spanish-speaking staff, leading to discussions about a change in programming.

City Councilor and New London school district employee Efrain Dominguez worked at the Dual Language & Arts Magnet School for nine years prior to his move to Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School two years ago.

“It’s a small school with great group of dedicated teachers, but the building was old,” Dominguez said. “I feel badly for those teachers.”

Dominguez said the reality is that the development of New London’s middle school magnet programs offers displaced students from the Dual Language & Arts Magnet Middle School solid alternatives.

g.smith@theday.com