Parents are the issue here. They refuse to discuss consolidation. They want their little Sally and Jimmy to relive their life experiences in the same old run down schools instead of simplifying the districts.
In my opinion, there should be 1 school district per county. None of this city/county stuff. DeSoto and Starkville have it correct.
My wife works for a non-profit that helps school boards stay compliant with laws. They write policy for boards to adopt, train boards on how to conduct legal meetings, troubleshoot all the crazy issues boards deal with, etc.
Consolidation has come up multiple times in meetings that my wife has been present at and the passion and emotion that bubble to the surface during those meetings is strong.
Its really crazy because some guy doesnt want a high school to consolidate because he played on the 1994 football team that qualified for state. Not won state, but qualified for state. That isnt a 17ing hypothetical, it actually happened. He wanted his kids to go to a school that lacked resources instead of consolidating and having better access to education because the high school would be in the town 8mi away at what was once a rival.
Didnt give a 17 about educational opportunities, didnt give a 17 about reducing expenses, only cared about legacy. And it was a ****** legacy to care about.
This wasnt a unique situation, multiple people spoke up and its the same thing at each consolidation discussion.
But as mentioned, district consolidation doesnt mean all schools must consolidate too. A district can just run 2 high schools, 3 middle schools, and 4 elementary schools or whatever the amounts are after consolidation.
The district we enroll our kids into has 5 high schools, 11 middle schools, and 38 elementary schools. It is possible for multiple schools to exist at the same level within a district. I dont know why some seem to think this isnt possible.
I do disagree with you that 1 school district per county is the correct approach.
- setting boundaries shouldnt be based on district when towns can straddle multiple counties.
- this can be a good idea for rural or semi-rural counties, but not necessarily heavily populated counties.
An aside- where I grew up, school districts were based on the education level. Elementary and middle schools were in a district and high schools were in a different district. The lower district serves 6 elementary schools and 2 middle schools.
The upper district serves 6 high schools across 6 neighboring towns and 7 lower districts feed into those 6 high schools. This setup allows for better focus- one district can focus on the needs of younger children and the other can focus on the needs of older teens. It works well because the population density is high enough to support that model.
Lastly, and this will be unpopular here, school funding should not be based on property tax. Sorry, it just shouldnt. Admittedly, this is where something like county based districts could help smooth the wild differences in funding between neighboring districts.
