Connie Lucas, an elected school board member in the Duquesne City School District, holds little power.

A state board of control has overseen the academically and financially failing school district since November 2000, and last year announced the district's single school would close after the 2011-2012 year. But in the absence of any formal plan from the state on how to educate the district's children, Ms. Lucas and fellow board members are working to save and, more importantly, improve their K-8 school.

In the spring, state education department officials announced the planned elementary school closure and said that plans would likely be made to send the 440 elementary students to nearby districts on a tuition basis similar to the arrangement that sends Duquesne high school students to East Allegheny and West Mifflin Area high schools. State officials reiterated that stance in October with a letter to parents stating the district was unlikely to exist in its current form beyond this school year.

Since then, there has been silence from state officials on the future of the district.

So Ms. Lucas and a handful of other elected board members and community leaders have taken it upon themselves to rally support to keep an elementary school in Duquesne beyond this school year. On Tuesday they announced a community meeting for Feb. 7 to which they plan to invite state education officials, state and local elected officials, community members and school staff to discuss the future of the district.

"We want them to know that we have a community of people who are interested and that we do want to keep our school in our community, but not in its current form because it is failing. We want to see what our options are for a quality education in Duquesne," Ms. Lucas said.

In the 2011 round of state testing, Duquesne students did not hit any of the academic targets set by the state.

What Ms. Lucas and her cohorts didn't know is that the same day they made their announcement, state Education Secretary Ron Tomalis told a Senate Education Committee that creating legislation to allow charter schools to take over distressed schools such as Duquesne and Chester Upland, in Delaware County, could be part of the package his department drafts to address the needs of the state's financially and academically troubled school districts.