A thick veil of grey fog clung to Dugger Elementary and Union Junior/Senior High schools the morning after Northeast School Corp. trustees voted to close the buildings.
And students returned to classes as per normal on Tuesday.
“We’re tyring to make it as normal for our kids as possible,” said Shane Reese, UHS’s principal. “It’s tough on them.”
The trustees voted, 3-2, during a special meeting Monday night to close the schools after classes end on May 23.
And other members of the community are as upset as students.
Alfred Kendall, a Dugger resident, said the closure was “a sad thing.”
He graduated from UHS in 1961 — he even worked as a custodian at the schools for 38 years alongside his brothers Ralph and Melvin for part of that time.
“It was kind of a family deal,” he said while picking up his mail at the town’s post office. “Not that many get to work with their brothers that way.”
And he doesn’t see a good outcome from the closure.
“What else can you say?”
However, members of the Save Union High School committee, which started when NESC began discussing consolidation in early November, is discussing possible legal action to save two schools.
But, should that fail, Dugger’s postmaster, Myra Helt, worries that the community will be negatively affected by the closures.
“They’re sad about it,” she said of the public’s reaction to the closure. “And once the schools go, the town will probably go.”
As part of the reorganization occuring within NESC, students from Dugger, as well as Cass and Jefferson townships, would be bused to nearby schools — Hymera or Farmersburg elementary schools for kindergartenters through fifth-graders, a new middle school where Shelburn Elementary School now sits for sixth- through eighth-graders, and North Central Junior/Senior High School for all ninth- through 12th-graders.
Monday night’s vote came with tension as Dugger supporters walked out of the meeting before the trustees made the last the motions necessary for the reorganization. This came with angry shouts between them and supporters of closing the schools.
Emotions ran high, and many Dugger school supporters were angered when, while walking out, they were met with clapping and cheers from those in favor of closing the schools. A video of the entire meeting, including that other interactions, has been posted to the Sullivan Daily Times YouTube and Facebook pages.
That tension may even darken a girls’ basketball game between the UHS Lady Bulldogs and the NCHS Ladybirds on Dec. 12.
NESC Superintedent Mark Baker said he has heard concerns about having the game and said he would bring the topic up with the schools’ principals and athletic directors during a meeting this morning. From there, he said he would need to talk with coaches.
“Right now, they are playing,” he said.
Despite the tension and sorrow in Dugger, Reese said the students will need to be the focus of teachers and school officials.
“They are some of them that are really struggling, to be honest, as expected,” he said.
“We’re doing our best to take care of them and make it as normal for them as possible for the remaining three weeks of this semester and next semester and try to be here for them like a family does.”
Copyright Kelk Publishing