Classes have not been taught at Eastmont Elementary School for 23 years, and the Woodland Hills School District no longer needs the deteriorating building for storage. So what is the property's best use?

Wilkins commissioners would like to convert it to a residential development. But some school officials think it might be a good place for a new junior high school.

Eastmont's future could turn on another decision -- the fate of East Junior High School in Turtle Creek.

The Churchill-Wilkins School District opened Eastmont Elementary in 1954, to accommodate the growing neighborhood at the northern end of Wilkins, near the Penn Hills border.

In 1981, a federal judge created the Woodland Hills district to counteract segregation. Eastmont Elementary, the judge ordered, had to close, as part of the merger of predominantly black General Braddock School District with the predominantly white Churchill Area, Edgewood, Swissvale and Turtle Creek districts.

Woodland Hills used the building as a warehouse. But the district has phased out its bus fleet and shifted storage to the bus garage. Plus, the building has deteriorated to the point that it would cost about $300,000 to replace the original roof and another $10,000 to $20,000 to bring the building up to code, said facilities coordinator Christopher Baker.

East Woodland Hills Junior High School in Turtle Creek also is in bad shape. Renovating it, or building a new school next door and then tearing down the old building, would cost about the same --$17 million to $20 million, officials said.

The Turtle Creek site also doesn't have much room. And then there are the plans to bring the Mon Valley Expressway through Penn Plaza, a block and a half away.

"The noise and the dirt" of an elevated highway, said school board President Cynthia Lowery, "is another negative."

So now the unused Eastmont site looks attractive. The cost of demolishing the building and putting up a new junior high school for 400 to 500 pupils is about the same as building or renovating in Turtle Creek, Baker said.

Another idea is to build a jun- ior high school next to the admini- stration building on Greensburg Pike and close the junior highs in Turtle Creek and Swissvale.

The problem, Lowery said, is that none of the sites are ideal.

The property in Turtle Creek is congested. Eastmont is at the northern fringe of the district and removed from the neighborhoods that would populate the school. Residents don't like the idea of closing two schools and building one large school at Greensburg Pike.

Last week, Wilkins commissioners voted to urge the school district not to use Eastmont for a junior high and to turn over the property to the township for development.

Wilkins Commissioner Sylvia Martinelli, who taught first grade at Eastmont Elementary for 13 years, said the nine-acre parcel would be ideal for a senior assisted-living community. She said a couple of developers are interested.

Such a development would put the property back on the tax rolls, benefiting the township and the school district.

The district has turned property over to nonprofit groups and local governments for a nominal cost, said board member Robert Tomasic. But Lowery is opposed.

"We couldn't possibly give the property to one of our municipalities. No way," she said.

The school district could sell the property directly to a developer. In fact, the Propel Charter Schools has been negotiating with the district and is considering a plan to renovate the old school and build an addition, Baker said.

Housing developers also have looked at the property, but the cost of buying the land and demolishing the school may be too much to make a project work, he said.

Lowery said the school board could decide what to do with East Junior High as early as next Wednesday. Renovations or new construction should start by 2006, Baker said, so architectural work must start soon.

"We need a decision now because we want to do something two years from now."