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Plans to add a new grade 6 wing on Founder's Hall Middle School were approved this week by city council.

The next step will be seeking approval from the state Department of Education, said Tim Gabauer, superintendent of McKeesport Area School District.

Valued at $11 million, the new wing, which would house approximately 285 students, would open in time for the 2014-15 school year and house students who currently attend Francis McClure Middle School in White Oak.

The decision to expand Founder's Hall represents "Plan B" after school directors in February scrapped a controversial plan to build a new elementary school near the border of McKeesport and White Oak. A new elementary school is under construction on Cornell Street at the site of Cornell Elementary School, formerly known as Tech High.

Moving the students to Founder's Hall would allow the district to turn the recently expanded and remodeled Francis McClure and the new Cornell Street school into buildings exclusively for pupils in kindergarten through grade 5, Gabauer said. George Washington, Centennial and White Oak schools would then be closed.

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Currently, McClure houses students in grades 4, 5 and 6, while Centennial and White Oak have pupils in kindergarten through grade 4, and George Washington has pupils in kindergarten through grade 3.

Centennial and George Washington, which opened in 1921 and 1928, respectively, are the district's oldest schools.

Founder's Hall currently houses seventh- and eighth-grade students. The sixth-grade wing at Founder's Hall would share the cafeteria, gymnasium and other infrastructure, but the 12 to 13 homerooms for students would remain somewhat separate from those used by the upper grades.

Grade 6 teachers also would get to share resources with specialty teachers in music and art.

The new wing would be built along Eden Park Boulevard, on an existing parking lot next to the Founder's Hall gymnasium.

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Sixth-graders are at a special "transitional year" in child development, Gabauer said. "Up until now, they've been part of the elementary program," he said. "But there is some thought that sixth-graders are not quite ready to mix with the older grade levels."

If the new wing is constructed, students won't change rooms every period like those in upper grades, but they will change rooms for special classes such as art and music.

The scrapped elementary school would have cost more than $30 million. "Based on what has happened over the past 18 months, this seems to be a better fit for the community both financially and academically," Gabauer said.

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