A story in today’s Belleville Telescope stated that the Pike Valley and Republic County school boards are scheduled to meet on Monday in Scandia to discuss the potential of a merger of the two districts.
The districts started looking over the financial benefits of a consolidation at the same time the USD 108 Washington County and USD 223 Barnes-Hanover-Linn school boards looked at it. The Barnes-Hanover-Linn board quickly stopped any talks about the process at their December meeting while the Republic County and Pike Valley boards have continued.
My honest belief is that the only thing the USD 223 board is doing is hurting local taxpayers by not at least considering more information. This discussion shouldn’t even be about whether consolidation is a good thing or a bad thing, it should be about the fact that the Linn side of the district is running out of students and if the board wants to wait five years until they are forced into doing something, all they are doing is being bad stewards of their patrons’ finances.
If the Hanover side of the district is so adamant about their allegiance to going to Marysville some day if they have to consolidate, maybe the discussion should move to splitting the USD 223 district and letting Linn-Palmer folks hook up with Washington and let Hanover continue on until they are forced to do something. Honestly, I believe the Hanover school will have a viable population supporting it for at least a couple more decades so they really shouldn’t have to do anything in the near future anyway.
The problem is, the Linn-Palmer area does not, at this time, have the demographics to keep the high school going another 10 years. I would love to be totally wrong on this theory and see a rebound in population across the county, but I believe the next census will not be kind to any community in the county.
If you think it is stressful talking about consolidation with Washington County right now, just wait until Linn runs out of kids and Hanover still has plenty of kids. Is the Linn-Palmer side of the district going to be held hostage in order to preserve Hanover’s side of the district? Or another way of looking at it, will the Hanover side want to financially subsidize the Linn-Palmer side of the district if it is two-thirds of their size? Sounds like some heated late night school board meetings to me!
Probably the only thing that would help move this situation forward is if a grassroots group of people on the Linn-Palmer side of the district stood up and asked the board to consider the financial benefits of a merger. The high schools could stay as they are until enrollment concerns force a closure. I can’t see that there is anything to lose in talking.
So what do you think? What is wrong with gathering more information and talking about it? Post your comments for other readers to consider.
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3 comments:
Dan, get off of it!!!!! Besides, no one besides me is going to write anyway! lol
Some of the comments in the Washington County News story recently about the possible merger between 108 and 223 indicated that some Hanover patrons would never go to Washington and made snide remarks about having no room to build in Hanover for all the Washington students.
Unlike Hanover, Washington does have plenty of room to expand.
It would be nice to know what is so wrong with Washington that they wouldn't consider heading that way. Furthermore, have Marysville administrators and board members been interviewed?
Would they even consider allowing Hanover to join them in the first place?
If you want to know one reason there is resistance to consolidation, I will direct you to the following article (requires Acrobat Reader):
www.flinthills.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=61 -
Washington's conceit is no secret to anyone living in the so-called periphery of Washington County. And it's worth note that by almost any measure, Washington County has the weakest county seat amongst the seven counties it adjoins. Why do people in Washington think the county will inevitably fold to them when in fact they are but 18 percent of the County's population. (www.census.gov)
Does anyone here for a second think that 108 would show the flexibility in working with 223 that Republic County schools has shown in working with Pike Valley? I recommend talking to the folks out west to see how they feel their process is going.
If you want to know how positive an outcome is to be had by consolidation, "talk to a man who drives one". See how many Mahaskans, Haddamites, and Morrowvillians believe it was consolidation....and not annihilation.
-POWER TO THE PERIPHERY
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