The Biloxi School Board has voted against accepting a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation to reopen a closed school.

The foundation offered the money to reopen Biloxi’s Nichols Elementary School, which was closed because of budget concerns.

Critics of the closure say Nichols was a high-performing school.

But the board voted Tuesday to ask the foundation to use the money for special intervention and tutorial programs for at risk students.

Superintendent Paul Tisdale and the head of the School Board, Kenny Holloway, have publicly said they could not support the offer to use the money to reopen Nichols because the district would find itself in the same place after the three-year grant expires.