Northeast School Corp. trustees agreed to postpone a vote to close its two schools in Dugger in order to hear a newly organized committee’s proposal in two weeks.
This move came after impassioned pleas from town residents to reject a feasibility study’s recommendation to close both Dugger Elementary School and Union Junior/Senior High School.
“We would respectfully ask the board to postpone a vote on possible reorganization here for a minimum of two weeks and coordinate with our group, which is called Save UHS,” said Greg Ellis, a Dugger resident and president of the committee. “We would like an opportunity to review the feasibility study to make sure the changes — (which) have been made at Union and Dugger that are of a cost-saving nature over that past six to eight months — are incorporated in there.”
Details of the Nov. 25 meeting are forth coming. Both NESC Superintendent Mark Baker and Trustee Norm Santus — who oversaw Monday’s school consolidation discussion — were unsure if it would be an open meeting or executive session, which would be closed to the public.
Board president Ron Frye made the motion to set up the meeting, which was seconded by trustee Jennifer McCammon Pinkston. Santus added the third necessary vote for the motion to pass on the condition that Ellis and the Save UHS committee provided a multi-year plan that wouldn’t break the bank.
“I just want to see where we’re gonna come up with the dollars,” Santus said after Monday’s meeting. “It’s a financial decision ... We just don’t have the money, and the state’s telling us we’re going to get less next year.”
Also under the feasibility study’s proposal, the corporation would operate two K-5 elementary schools in Farmersburg and Hymera, Shelburn Elementary School would become a 6-8 middle school facility and North Central Junior/Senior High School would be converted to solely a high school.
This study took into account how much of the available space is used at a school, the costs of educating a student at a school and the building’s condition. It identified UHS as the worst in those categories with operating costs per student topping $9,000, a building in need of repairs and upgrades, and just over 40 percent of its space utilized.
However, UHS’s steady enrollment numbers compared to fluctuations at other schools were noted as a positive.
The major instigation in using the study is a hemorrhaging of funds in the corporation from decreased enrollment and funding cuts from the state government. The corporation, since 2011, has made numerous cuts to its number of teachers and education programs.
Farmersburg resident Leslie Hawker was the sole community member to speak in favor of closing the schools.
“It’s math,” she said. “If you do not have the funds, what’s going to happen is we’re gonna have to make some tough decisions or we’re going to drown because you cannot keep this corporation running with this gaping hole bleeding out our finances. And it's not just ... Dugger. It’s the fact that we have less money, (and) we have more expenses.”
She also said this could be avoided in the future if those angered over the potential consolidation turned that emotion against state legislators.
“If you want to be mad at somebody and want to take it out on somebody,” she said, “take it to the Statehouse and lobby for more money for education.”
In the end, Ellis said he just hopes to find an alternative to closing Dugger’s schools that will pull NESC out of the red.
“Basically, we’ve got to convince (trustees) that there is a feasible plan out there to keep Union and Dugger school open that won’t bankrupt the school corporation,” he said.
Copyright Kelk Publishing