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OPINION: Why not consolidate our school districts?
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Because it has historically had a bigger industrial base than some other towns its size, Pontotoc has suffered a disproportionate blow to its tax base with the economic downturn.
On top of that, Wal-Mart built a new Supercenter in the county school district and closed its old store, and the city school district is projecting budget cuts that will be more than uncomfortable.
The officials expressed genuine concern that if the trend were to continue, Pontotoc City School District might someday cease to exist.
Why not now?
Despite the way it sounds at first, the district’s disappearance would not be a Doomsday scenario.
All the schools would still open. Students would still ride yellow buses, eat lunch in cafeterias, interact with teachers and do homework. The Warriors would still battle it out on the gridiron, the court and the diamond with the Vikings, the Cougars and all the other usual opponents.
What the administrators feared was that the city school district itself would have to combine operations with Pontotoc County School District. A lot of parents have emotional ties to the city district, they said.
I understand. Change is usually uncomfortable. But having one district to serve both city and county would offer efficiencies that really ought to be considered before a crisis kicks in.
It would mean one school board – not two.
One superintendent – not two.
One business office – not two.
One bus system, one food service, one maintenance system – not two.
If DeSoto County can serve 30,000 students with one district, surely Pontotoc County could serve 5,600.
And this isn’t to pick on Pontotoc. If not for us-vs.-them mindsets, Oxford and Lafayette County could do the same. New Albany and Union County could, too.
Then there are Holly Springs and Marshall County, Starkville and Oktibbeha County, Corinth and Alcorn County.
West Point could easily oversee Clay County’s students (all 154 of them, by last year’s count). North Tippah and South Tippah could combine their 4,000 or so.
Aberdeen, Amory and Monroe County.
Baldwyn, Booneville and Prentiss County.
Chickasaw, Houston and Okolona.
Tupelo, Nettleton and Lee County.
The efficiencies to be had from combining districts are available now. Why wait for a crisis?
Contact Daily Journal Oxford Bureau reporter Errol Castens at (662) 281-1069 or errol.castens@djournal.com. Read his blog at NEMS360.com.
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comments (2)
« elgordo wrote on Thursday, Sep 03 at 11:48 AM »
Easy to say, hard to do, but we must do it. Arkansas lived through a court ordered consolidation. If we are going to stop using the state budget for political capital, the two 400 pound gorillas are Education and Medicaid. For those who have local, legitimate school system horrors: You elected the school boards, you purchased houses in the districts, and you have the democratic mechanisms to swallow the bitter pill of correcting past sins.
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« anonymous wrote on Thursday, Sep 03 at 09:37 AM »
Come on Errol, are you serious? While some of your consolidation ideas do carry some form of consistent truth, please understand that every year the Lee County school system gains students from the Tupelo School System. Mainly because some parents, such as myself, do not want our children going to "Thug Nation" for an education. My oldest son attends Saltillo High School, partly because we live in the district, but the majority of the reason is because I want him to get an education he can use in college, not prison. Lee County offers twice the eduction without need for security (ok, call them what they are, armed) checkpoints, metal detectors, routine (yes weekly) canine inspections of parking lots and halls, or the uncomfortable feeling of watching classmates lead out of class and down the hall by Law Enforcement officers. Do me a favor, fix the Tupelo Public Schools BEFORE you consider consolidating them with the county system. We don't need, or want for that matter, the problems that currently run rampant through the city schools.
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