CHERRY — About 150 Cherry residents and friends attended a town meeting at the Cherry Grade School Thursday to discuss the future of the school.

“It is a very heart-wrenching experience to give up your school if that’s what has to be done,” Superintendent Jim Boyle said. “It tears at your heart because it’s the very foundation of your community.”

The purpose of the meeting was to explain to the community how a combination of evaporating state aid, shrinking property values and declining enrollment had led the board to pursue closing the school at the end of the 2013-14 school year.