ELKHART — Rob Haworth, superintendent of Elkhart Community Schools, has big hopes.
“We would like for our school district to be an educational destination point,” he said Wednesday, addressing a gathering of the League of Women Voters of Elkhart County.
LWV representatives invited Haworth to address the proposed reorganization of schools in the Elkhart district, the focus of a series of public meetings over the summer. School board members are expected to craft a proposal charting future development in the school system, called a Strategic Plan, by next month, using the proposed reorganization as a springboard.
As proposed, the reorganization calls for creation of one building housing 10th, 11th and 12th graders, among many other things, and Haworth reiterated some of the arguments for the varied moves.
The changes would help Elkhart schools improve their offerings, thereby retaining students and stemming the flow of students to neighboring school districts, he said. The more students who are in the schools here, the more funding the district can get from the state.
“We have students that live in our district boundaries that are choosing to go to other locations,” Haworth said. Officials want Elkhart schools “to be seen as the land of opportunities.”
Memorial High School would become the sole high school under the change, perhaps the most controversial element of the original proposal, and what is now Central High School would house strictly ninth graders.