Following the approval of all three Wabash County schools corporations to join into talks for a grant proposal for the Community Foundation of Wabash County, few developments have been made to suggest a time frame for either the grant application process or the resulting feasibility studies.
The invitations to all three district superintendents were sent back in January inviting “two or more” of them to come together to craft a grant proposal to fund a study that would analyze different aspects of all three districts and formulate solutions that may fix any concerns. In a press release sent out by the Community Foundation, it stated that if all goes well with the grant process, the organization would then call on outside professionals to do the analyses.
According to Metropolitan School District of Wabash County (MSD) Superintendent Mike Keaffaber, both MSD along with Wabash City Schools (WCS) submitted recommendations to the Community Foundation early last month about what they would like to see analyzed during the studies. Keaffaber noted that the proposal was submitted before Manchester Community Schools (MCS) also agreed to enter into the discussions, which was announced in mid-February.
Keaffaber stated that it has “not been determined yet” how they will proceed now that MCS has agreed to come on board as well.
MCS Superintendent Dr. Bill Reichhart informed the Plain Dealer on Tuesday morning that he had been unaware that MSD and WCS had submitted anything to the Community Foundation prior to MCS agreeing to join in the conversation. Reichhart also shared that he will be meeting with Carol Lindquist, a former chief academic officer with Fort Wayne Community Schools, whom he said the Community Foundation has called on to be a “project facilitator,” on Monday.
In regards to the recommendations already sent by MCS and WCS, Patty Grant, executive director for the Community Foundation, clarified that they are not by any means “setting aside” or rejecting the original submission. The goal is to expand it following their individual meetings with each superintendent.
“They are recommendations for studies and it’s possible we will pursue them,” Grant said. “But we absolutely want to include MCS. We are so pleased that all three are willing to meet. We want to conduct these to facilitate a countywide conversation on the education needs in Wabash.”
Grant added that when they sent out the invitations to the local districts they did not have a set timeline in mind for when they would like to receive the proposal, as well as begin the studies. She noted that the schedule is “very open” and that at this current time there is no clear layout of how long the processes will take.
Reichhart stated that he has plans to meet with a consultant to talk about strategic planning in the upcoming weeks. He hopes that following his meeting on Monday, he will receive an idea from the Community Foundation in regards to what he can expect from this grant process.
“I would like to have a direction in terms of what the Community Foundation can do for us,” Reichhart said. “We’re committed to doing strategic planning and I would kind of like to have an idea of that so we can merge those ideas.”
The upcoming discussions and subsequent grant proposal submitted by the cooperating districts are not to be confused with the joint executive session expected to take place in the future between WCS and MSD to discuss dwindling student populations and potential school consolidation, discussions that MCS opted out of at the end of 2016.
The current proposal for funding for a feasibility study may help out those discussions, but Keaffaber said that those meetings have yet to be officially scheduled.
“Since we have gone and submitted the proposal, we are going to wait and see what the the next steps are as far as the Community Foundation is concerned,” Keaffaber said.