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HUNTSVILLE — Lincoln Elementary didn't earn its statewide reputation for academic success by outscoring schools in poor neighborhoods.

Instead, Lincoln accomplished something no school north of Birmingham ever has.

"They have been able to dispel the myth," said Dr. Angela Mangum of the Alabama Department of Education, "that high-poverty and high-performing cannot be synonymous."

So when the Huntsville school board last week discussed a proposal to close its role model for inner-city success, combining Lincoln with another elementary school, state administrators and school advocates in Montgomery took notice.

"It would be a travesty that a healing agent would be removed from the community," said Mangum, "and I think that the community would suffer, and Huntsville as a whole would suffer as a result."

The school board is considering a plan to close Lincoln, and several other aging elementary schools, to save on maintenance and operational costs. Proponents of consolidation say Lincoln is small, the structure is 80 years old and the neighborhood would end up with a share of a newly built school.

But Mangum, and some Lincoln volunteers, say Lincoln's success is so unique, the network of church volunteers and social services so specific, that progress could be lost in the transfer, especially when 171 Lincoln students are combined with 283 students who score half as well in some subjects.

"We ought to have enough confidence in the community that they will follow the kids," said Bob Drolet, the retired general heading up the school system's consolidation committee. "The attachment can't be to the school. It has to be to the kids."

But Mangum, who handles classroom improvement and school recognition programs for the state, said doubling the school itself would double the challenge.

"When you have a smaller school environment you are better able to know each child and I think that's a big part of their success," said Mangum. "If you double that, that may not necessarily happen. I think that's the value of having a small learning community."

Topper Birney, a school board member who volunteered at Lincoln before running for office, welcomed the consolidation plan.

He said the new building would be handicapped-accessible and avoid the $1.5 million that would be needed to install an elevator in Lincoln to meet federal standards.

However, Birney said he would fight any plans to build the combined school elsewhere.

That's because Lincoln's success is partly linked to the physical campus.

Lincoln Village Ministries, a coalition supported by more than a dozen churches, has bought and renovated more than 35 homes in the neighborhood, said Charlene Pinke, volunteer coordinator at the school. The parents who move in sign a code of conduct.

"It is not just a tutorial program," said Pinke. "This is a large group that is supporting this entire neighborhood."

Pinke is paid by the Village Ministries to work at the school 15 hours a week, organizing more than 70 volunteers who come to read with individual children once a week. The volunteers are not parents. Most cross town to come to Lincoln, channeled through the network of 12 to 15 churches led by Southwood Presbyterian.

With fewer than 200 students, Lincoln was the city's second-smallest elementary school last year. And it may be the oldest, housed in a mill village building dating to 1929.

Its size and age have long made it a target for consolidation.

On Thursday, a committee reporting to Superintendent Ann Roy Moore suggested consolidating eight elementary schools into four and merging two middle schools. Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. elementary schools would share a new school. The location has not been determined.

Drolet said the committee was charged with scouring lists of aging and underused buildings for potential savings.

He said the entire plan could save the school board up to $7 million a year in everything from fewer utility bills to fewer principals.

However, Drolet said academic performance was not considered when deciding which schools to close.

"If you add up enough criteria, you don't do anything," said Drolet during a meeting at the Times last week. "You end up with the status quo ... trying to renovate schools built in 1929 that ought have been torn down."

However, Lincoln isn't like the other schools proposed for consolidation. Lincoln has shown that children from poor neighborhoods, when given support and resources, can test as well as their middle-class counterparts.

Christy Jensen, principal at Lincoln, declined to comment for this story.

But Cathy Gassenheimer, director of policy think tank A+ Education Foundation in Montgomery, said she was taken aback by the consolidation talk.

Her staff, she said, has been writing about Lincoln, using it as one of three statewide models of academic success.

"I'd be screaming; I was screaming about Lincoln," Gassenheimer said this week about the consolidation plan. "I think one of the better-kept secrets was how every adult in that building was committed to improving the academic success of every child."

At Lincoln Elementary, the families of nine out of 10 students earn paychecks small enough to qualify for federal help with free or reduced-price lunch. That's not unusual in Huntsville, where a dozen elementary schools see similar concentrations of poverty.

But for Lincoln, test scores have defied expectations based on schoolwide poverty.

Last year, Lincoln students in third and fifth grade posted higher SAT scores in math than students in several mostly middle-class schools such as Whitesburg, Farley and Williams.

In math, Lincoln consistently outperformed nine elementary schools in the Madison County system and even beat the average scores at a couple of schools in Madison.

Last fall, Lincoln won $65,000 as part of three state commendations for closing the achievement gaps between haves and have-nots and between white and black students.

In January, the state named Lincoln as one of nine "Torchbearer" schools. It's the only one north of Birmingham to receive the honor reserved for high-poverty, high-performing schools.

At a board meeting four months ago, Superintendent Moore called Lincoln "an example of what can be accomplished when everyone works together to help children close the achievement gap."

But success goes beyond reading and arithmetic, said Pinke.

Lincoln has the social agencies to provide dental and medical care, the donations to provide warm clothes and raffle off Wal-Mart gift cards for perfect attendance, and the donated time to reach children outside the classroom, as some volunteers take reading buddies out for birthday gifts or even bring them on vacation.

Even last week, Pinke said, about 26 Lincoln students were at a Christian sports camp in Missouri.

Another 15 will put on a performance with Fantasy Playhouse next month.

And 15 more are halfway through two weeks with Mary Ann Peterson and Mary Halverstadt, a pair of volunteer teachers from Alabama Youth Ballet who bring along a cadre of young ballerinas to work with the Lincoln students.

Last Thursday, hours before the formal proposal to consolidate schools, Peterson stood barefoot in front of a mirrored wall, asking the Lincoln students to lift a foot from the floor. "Degage," she instructed in the French commands of ballet. "Degage."

Roshaud Hardy put his right foot forward and launched his 10-year-old frame into the air, left foot to the front, right trailing far behind.

Peterson watched the grand jete, or great leap.

"Not jete," she said, restarting the music. "Degage."

Later, Peterson explained that the students learn coordination, discipline and even bits of French. Halverstadt said ballet also teaches focus.

"It's cool," said 9-year-old Sam Clay, heading toward the pizza and grapes a church provided for lunch.

"It beats school," added Hardy.

Next Thursday, the Lincoln ballet students, including three boys, will perform at 6 p.m. on stage at the Merrimack Hall.

Information from The Huntsville Times.