AMSTERDAM — Laura Osborne, owner of the Natural Method Yoga Studio, moved her business to space in the Walter Elwood Museum in June after the building she rented downtown was bought.

Osborne will now have to move her business again after the Greater Amsterdam School District Board of Education decided Wednesday to close the 106-year-old building at 300 Guy Park Ave., which has housed the Walter Elwood Museum for the last 40 years.

The school board decided to close the building after hearing concerns from museum Director Anne Peconie.

Superintendent of Schools Thomas Perillo said he received a letter Wednesday from Peconie, who said she and the museum board had health and safety concerns about the building, which is a former school owned by the district.

Perillo said the concerns varied from problems with the roof, bricks falling from the chimney and a bat problem, something Perillo said the district has been struggling with for a while.

Perillo said Peconie’s concerns included the fact that the bats were beginning to come down from the attic.

“The board didn’t want to take chances, so for the concern of the museum’s staff, and the students and children, we decided to close the building for health and safety reasons,” Perillo said.

Perillo said the district “knows the value of the museum for our students and for this community,” but doesn’t anticipate making repairs to the building so that the museum can resume operations there.

Jacqueline Meola, a member of the museum’s board of trustees, said the museum’s staff is “devastated” by the school board’s decision.

“This is not what we wanted,” Meola said Friday.

Meola said it had always been the agreement that the museum should contact the school district about things affecting the building, including needed repairs and mowing the grass. She said recently the district was failing to make repairs, so as tenants, the museum board decided to approach its landlord — the school district — to discuss concerns about the building. Meola said no one was expecting the school board to close the facility.

“We were nothing but shocked that this would happen so quickly,” she said.

Sean Piasecki, a new member of the school board, said the notice about the bat infestation was what caused the board to vote quickly to close the building.

“In [Peconie’s] letter, the urgency was clear, so for the safety of the visitors and everyone else I feel like we made the right decision,” Piasecki said.

The district has cleared space on the second floor of the district office for the museum’s staff to continue to operate. Piasecki also agreed that it might not be cost-effective for the district to keep the building on Guy Park Avenue, but he said the district is working to find the museum another location.

“The importance of having a museum, everyone agrees, but that might not be the right location,” Piasecki said.

The Walter Elwood Museum has been increasing its efforts to reach out to the community. The museum had just completed a successful summer enrichment program and was recently awarded a contract with the city to provide cultural and enrichment programs in exchange for $25,000.

“I’m extremely pleased with the momentum the museum has seen in the last year or so,” Meola said. “We were on the verge of having a tremendous year.”

Meola said museum officials had begun to work on a community event for the fall, similar to its summer ice cream social, possibly a fall festival to coincide with the city’s Halloween Parade.

Mayor Ann Thane, who worked as director of the Walter Elwood Museum before taking her position with the city, said the museum has been struggling with the school district for years.

In 1981, the district threatened to close the museum, but prominent community members like Noteworthy Industries president Tom Constantino rallied the community to keep it open.

“Every few years this seems to happen,” Thane said. “If you go to the museum, you can see that Walter Elwood himself had this problem.” (Elwood was a teacher and world traveler who bequeathed his extensive personal collection to the museum.)

Thane said the museum might fit well into Guy Park Manor on the Mohawk River.

For now, Meola said, she is trying to reach as many board members as possible to schedule a meeting to decide the museum’s next move.