The issue: Inequity in school funding
Our opinion: School consolidation is permanent solution
Imagine one Shawnee School District with net assessed valuation of more than $177 million and what type of facilities and educational opportunities could be provided students. Think of the advantages and cost savings of a centralized administration and the efficiencies in a single transportation system.
Instructors could have top-of-the-line equipment and technology and be better equipped to meet the needs and challenges for education in the 21st Century.
This would be possible if Shawnee and the four surrounding K-8 elementary school districts were unified.
For that to happen, the community leaders who reside in those districts must take the initiative and convince enough of the school patrons to pursue becoming a part of the Shawnee School District.
The $177,770,955 net asasessed valuations is according to the county assessor’s records for the 2009-10 school year which is about to begin. For some of the dependent districts (K-8), school opens this week.
Shawnee’s net assessed valuation is the largest, of course, at $99,123,441. Shawnee’s total enrollment is around 4,000 students.
The majority of students in the four dependent school districts — Grove, North Rock Creek, South Rock Creek and Pleasant Grove — will attend Shawnee High School after completing the eighth grade. Obviously it’s much less expensive on property owners who reside in those districts to send their students to Shawnee for high school, than it would be to build their own high schools and increase their property taxes.
The ad valorem taxes they pay in those districts do nothing to help support the facilities at Shawnee High School. The $22.1 million bond issue approved by 80 percent of the voters in the Shawnee school district nearly four years ago is being paid solely by taxpayers in the Shawnee school district.
A major piece of that bond issue is the new Performing Arts and Athletic Center at Shawnee High School.
The real issue is not just repairing Shawnee High’s buildings. The real issue is the quality of education for all high school students coming from the involved districts.
According to the latest average daily membership figures, which shot SHS into Class 6A athletics, the school serves 1,245 students, many of whom come from the dependent districts. Last school year, 221 or nearly 18 percent of SHS students came from those four districts.
During Tuesday night’s Shawnee School Board meeting, some board members made it pretty clear. They believe it’s time the local school districts, Shawnee and those surrounding them, combine their resources, become unified and make Shawnee High School the best school possible.
In 2008, the Greater Shawnee Chamber of Commerce attempted to make some headway, at least begin discussions between Shawnee and the surrounding districts.
The dependents were a bit hesitant, but finally all but Grove joined in and agreed to meet. Grove’s school board and staff remained steadfast and wouldn’t budge, refusing to attend.
That’s unfortunate, because a number of people who count themselves as among Shawnee’s community leaders reside in the Grove district and in some of the districts which seem lukewarm to the discussions.
The smaller districts seem to believe that if unification or consolidation happens their school are going to be gobbled up by Shawnee, that classroom sizes would become larger, many teachers would lose their jobs.
That’s just not the case.
Shawnee School Superintendent Marilyn Bradford has explained that if the other school districts joined Shawnee, those buildings, those facilities, the teachers are still going to be needed. That would seem logical.
Will some administrators lose their jobs? Probably.
But look what is happening in the private sector, right here in Shawnee alone, over the past several months.
Oklahoma has far too many school districts. Pottawatomie County has 14 public school districts, and that is simply too many for the funding available today from state sources.
A recent online poll conducted on the News-Star’s Web site produced some interesting results when the question was posed, “Do you favor the state legislature mandating consolidation of school districts where needed?” Forty-six percent favored it, while 45 percent opposed and the remaining were unsure.
It’s time serious discussions begin about unifying Shawnee and the surrounding districts. The way for that to happen is for the community leaders in those districts to insist their school board and staff come to the table and join in discussions. The division between Shawnee and these other districts has gone on long enough.
Shawnee should be unified and the Shawnee School District taxpayers should no longer foot the bill by themselves to provide the facilities also being enjoyed by those coming from the surrounding districts,
Pending a look at the details, the short-term Band-aid is for Shawnee voters to go ahead and approve the bond issue and make necessary repairs. The permanent cure is consolidation.
Action is needed now. We need to wait no longer.
