Oelwein CSD
by comparison has a student body of 1280 students. If you want to know what
kind of class sizes your children will face, look no further than Oelwein. Oelwein
is the 88th largest district as far as enrollment in Iowa out of 352
districts. North Fayette Valley would become the 90th largest
district in the state. We would be larger than Allamakee Schools (1207
students), Algona (1199 students), Hampton-Dumont (1199 students), Iowa Falls
(1087 students), New Hampton (1003 students), Aplington Parkersburg (842
students) and the list goes on. (Source; CLICK HERE).
Starmont and
Postville each have about 600 children. Central has about 400 children (same as
Valley). This is my biggest beef with this Whole Grade Sharing. This isn’t a
case of 2 schools with 250 kids making a school of 500. 1250 kids is a very
large school, much larger than I care to send my children to – and this is the
biggest reason that I open enrolled my children out. My daughter Jenna is in the 5th
grade this year, and next year she will be in middle school. Next year she would be thrown in with all of those extra kids. This is why this will be the last year my children attend Valley.
Bigger is not better. We’re educating children, not raising hogs.
2. Increased bus
times. Again, this cannot be disputed. Children from Alpha, Hawkeye,
and Fayette will have it the worst. It takes about 40 minutes to drive from
Alpha to the Elgin campus by car. Add in all the extra time that taking a bus
involves, and you can see how your child from Alpha can expect to spend 2+
hours per day on a bus. Why don’t they put teachers on those buses so that the
kids can have some education time while they ride around the countryside?
3. Geographic
Location. This goes hand in hand with #2. Those of you who live in
Elgin or Clermont will really notice the difference. No longer will you be able
to enjoy a < 3 minute trip out to the school for your High Schoolers. Now
you will have to drive about 15 minutes.
No longer
will you have one stop shopping for school conferences if you have multiple
children in school. If you need to pick your kids up from school early for any
reason, you have to go to two separate schools now. This convenience that you
have enjoyed all these years will be lost.
For those of
us from Wadena, it’s much worse. The High School campus in West Union is just
about 15 miles away (vs. 11 for the Valley campus). North’s High School is on
the opposite side of West Union, so it takes a few minutes to drive through
town. By contrast, the Starmont campus is 11 miles away, and there’s only one
stop sign between here and there. Central is about the same distance as West
Union, but with Central, Postville, or Starmont, you get the convenience of one
stop shopping.
Even the
Iowa School Board Association mentions that geography should play a role in
where your children are educated. This is the same association that our WGS
friends keep mentioning while pushing this WGS arrangement. CLICK HERE to read
the statement.
4. Whole Grade Sharing
leads to Consolidation. Those who are for WGS will tell you that this
is speculative, but it’s really not. They know that if you knew what was to
come next, that you would fight like hell against this plan. Don’t take my word
that WGS leads to consolidation. I have created a post where I am working on
putting up all the instances I can find where school administrators and others
have been honest about the real purpose of WGS. CLICK HERE to read it. If this were a case of two
small schools coming together to make a normal sized school, it may be
different. However, we’re talking about taking two average sized schools and
making a very large school. In fact, we’ll be one of the largest schools in
this part of the state. Large schools may offer more class variety – but they
also have a lot of problems that are inherent with schools of a large size.
First, you lose true local control. You have fewer people representing a much
larger area. In large schools, parents generally have to form organizations in
order to get recognition from their school board. Cedar Rapids right now is
losing children in droves to the smaller surrounding schools, and a lot of it
has to do with personal attention. I grew up in Walker, which is just north of
Cedar Rapids. I know people who live down there and I know what problems they
are facing.
Once
consolidation comes, our Elgin campus will be in jeopardy. This is for reasons
that also cannot really be disputed. Imagine a consolidated school district for
one moment. There will be somewhere between 7 to 9 school board members. No
longer are we separate schools, but one. Look at the Iowa School Boundary map
by CLICKING HERE. Do you see how Valley and North Fayette mirror each other?
Imagine that as one district. Where do you think the center of that district
will be? If you guessed West Union, you win a cigar!
Almost every
school that I can think of tries to create a central campus for financial
reasons. North Linn just finally completed creating one central campus by
placing their elementary schools out at the Middle and High School. They moved
the Middle School out there back in the mid 1990’s. Before that, North Linn had
4 school buildings. Now they have one large one. Walker and Coggon (where the two elementary buildings were located) now each have an empty school building to deal with like we have here in Wadena.
East
Buchanan has had a central campus for some time. Before I started kindergarten,
I believe they were still using the Aurora building. I went to school there back when
they held K-3 in Quasqueton (Quasky). They used to send 5-12 up to Winthrop. Everything is up at Winthrop now.
Let’s not
forget. When Valley started, they used the Clermont school for some time. I
wasn’t around then, but I believe they used the Elgin building as well. Did they
use Wadena? No matter whether they did or not, eventually, we moved to a
central campus. It’s how it works. It saves money and decreases busing
expenses. You won’t be shipping kids from the western fringes of the district
to the eastern fringe. Everyone will just go to the center. Think of why most
county seats are generally placed towards the center of each county. The same
holds true with schools.
There is no
reason to believe that once consolidation comes that there won’t be a push for
a Central Campus. The new school will cover a vast territory, and as such, will
have tremendous transportation expenses. They will also have a very large tax base at their disposal. It’s doesn’t take someone being very creative to see
the handwriting on the wall. After consolidation, we won't have the votes on the board to save our Elgin campus should they decide to close it and build a new school in West Union. It'll be all over but the crying.
Yes, maybe
it is slightly speculative to say that this will all happen, but consider this.
If you smoke cigarettes, you’re told that you’re probably going to get cancer
and die. Is it true that everyone who smokes will end up with cancer? No. But
we still warn people, don’t we? We even put Surgeon General’s warnings on packs
of cigarettes. There’s even been a push to put photos on packs of cigarettes to
help drive home the point. Maybe that’s what’s needed here?
There are
many other reasons to oppose WGS. As you can see, it’s not about prejudice or
fear. Well, maybe fear, but only fear in the sense that those who support WGS
may actually succeed in dooming our current school towards closure. Using the
word “fear” to label your opponents is a powerful tool. My grandfather went to
Germany and fought against a bunch of people who accused the Jews of being
fearful of change. Just remember, not all change is good. Not all fear is bad.
Finally, the
question has to be asked – when will we be satisfied? How big is big enough?
Where does consolidation stop? Will school expansion only be limited by how far
we can bus our children in a day? When the Elgin, Clermont, and Wadena schools
consolidated, I don’t believe they ever imagined that this day would have come.
The very same arguments are being made today that were being made back then.
What’s next? In 50 more years will we go to a county wide school system? After
that, will we go to a college system where we have about 20 campuses in the
state where we ship our kids? Since those back 50 years ago probably would have
laughed if you would have suggested this was going to happen, I have to ask
these questions today. When will it stop? Again, this is about educating children,
not raising hogs or cattle. Evidence suggests that smaller may very well be
better when it comes to education. One thing is for certain. Once we lose our
school – there is no getting it back. Just because you see everyone jumping off
the bridge doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do. Use your brain. Think
about the consequences of our actions. Do we really want to risk losing our
school? I say we learn to live within our means and continue being one of the
best small schools in the entire state of Iowa.
-Eric
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Keep it civil.