School
Consolidation and the Warren County-Wide Option
By
Richard W. Crockett
Both
Monmouth-Roseville and United School Districts are facing potentially large
capital expenditures in the near future.
The Monmouth-Roseville district is looking at a 3.5 million dollar
addition, potentially, to their 100-year-old high school building, with some
additional life safety issues to address.
United is facing life safety issues, as defined by the state, concerning
the old Alexis gymnasium and may face the expenditure for a new gymnasium on
the Warren Campus.
Both
boards of education may want to pause long enough to look at the advantages and
disadvantage, each from their own point of view, of a combined single
county-wide school district, before spending these monies only to have to face
rethinking the matter after having already spent these large sums.
There
are clearly pluses and minuses to any such consolidation plan. What follows is an outline of one such
consolidation plan and its pluses from each school districtÕs perspective. The minuses are not completely
itemized, but the most potent one is emotional, having to do with the perceived
Òtearing awayÓ of what is old and familiar. But consolidation may provide a way of maintaining
some local community identity in the early grades. The county-wide plan will retire several older schools that
are high maintenance facilities.
This could be an opportune time for each board to assess the direction
of their school with a countywide option.
(1)
Grade Schools—Keep
the present grade schools located at Alexis, Roseville, Yorkwood and
Monmouth. Have an open enrollment
policy whereby Warren school district students could go to the school of their
choice. This would allow these
students to access to the school closest to their homes.
(2)
Junior High—Warren
High School would be the unit junior high school.
(3)
High School—Build
a new unit high school.
(4)
Savings of this
consolidation plan—Buildings being closed—Present Monmouth High
School, Roseville Jr. High School, Yorkwood High School, Alexis gymnasium and
old high school building.
Savings comes from maintenance and operating costs of these older
buildings.
(5)
Major item cost of this
plan—New Building—one new high school would need to be built. It would be located in one of the
following places, either on the Bypass around Monmouth or next to the Warren
Jr. High School.
(6)
Financing—tax
base--The combined school district would have the tax base of five former
districts (Alexis, Warren, Roseville, Yorkwood and Monmouth.)
(7)
The board would need to
assess the proposed district tax base and the costs involved. The board would also need to assess the
savings of closing down several buildings and savings for bus services.
(1)
Monmouth and Warren
School are in the geographical center of the proposed district.
(2)
Bus Routes/Student Ride
time—There would be a drastic cut back in bus time per student as the
grade school students would be bussed to the nearest grade school. Jr. High and High School would have a
one-way trip in the morning and one trip home at night. This plan will be the best possibility
to limit bus time for students.
(3)
Parental participation
and Support—Grade School Parents would be much closer to the schools and
it would be much easier to follow their children in school activities. For the Jr. High and High school, one
trip to Monmouth for sport, student activities, plays, etc. Some students may
not be able to afford to participate in these activities under current
arrangements. Also parental
ability to follow their children would be easier. An example would be Berwick parents needing to travel to
Yorkwood or Alexis for parent-teacher conferences rather than Warren or
Monmouth.
(4)
Quality of Education—Curriculum—Course
offerings would be much greater with larger enrollment. Teacher/student
interaction may improve as a result of reduced mind numbing time spent on the
bus, and participation in activities could be improved for the same reason.
(1)
High
School—Monmouth-Roseville would be part of a larger new High School
(2)
Junior High
School—Monmouth-Roseville would be included in the propose Junior High
School location at Warren that is very close to Monmouth.
(3)
Grade Schools—The
Monmouth grade schools would remain virtually the same as present except some
additional students from United may prefer to attend Monmouth grade schools
because of their living close to Monmouth.
(4)
Curriculum—The
curriculum would be enhanced due to the larger enrollment at all levels
including vocational and college courses.
The increased course offering could be added to both College Bound and
Vocational curriculums.
(5)
Class sizes—The
district would have more flexibility to achieve classroom balance in size since
it could move students to closer schools.
Example: Berwick students could attend at Roseville or Monmouth.
A
county-wide school district with a new high school at the edge of Monmouth would
become a valuable tool in attracting new businesses and industries to the area.
Shorter
bussing routes and enhanced curriculum provide the greatest weight in the
incentive to create a countywide school district. The curriculum would be able to offer college preparatory
coursed in classes devoted to that aim.
The Monmouth-Roseville/ Monmouth College connection could be developed
where high school students could receive some college credits while still in
high school. The prospect for an
enhanced vocational curriculum would exists because enrollment numbers would
permit these course offerings.
There would be more resources for the developmentally disabled, special
needs students in a larger district with more in-house classes. Finally, gifted programs could be more
easily offered in a school district with more resources.
Prudence
would encourage both boards to take a step back and look seriously at the
advantages to each of a county-wide school district and the way that it could
be implemented before investing large sums of community resources in facilities
that may beg for replacement sooner rather than later.
9/13/07