Whitko Schools
February 12, 2018 at 5:30 p.m.
By -
Just a few short weeks ago, we changed the calendar to a new year, 2018. The new year also ushered in a vote by the Whitko Community School Board to close Whitko Middle School and put grades 7-12 at the high school campus in South Whitley. This vote was the most fiscally responsible way to handle the situation that Whitko finds itself in.
Alas, there are portions of our school district that feel they were wronged nearly fifty years ago, (ironically before many of them were even born), and have allowed their emotions to take control of logic and common sense. Unfortunately, those people have taken their emotions to a despicable level, and have been nothing less than nasty, rude, and downright threatening to the board members that voted responsibly and even to those of us from the general public who have tried to reason with them.
It seems that in all the finger pointing and name calling, the root of the reason for Whitko consolidating buildings has been forgotten. Like many small rural corporations, we are a school system bleeding students. In fact, the student population at the high school alone has dropped a startling 24 percent just since the 2013-2014 school year. Plain and simply put, until the bleeding is stopped, Whitko is in no financial shape to move the high school to the Larwill campus.
The building in Larwill has a capacity of 400 students, according to a list of buildings and basic descriptions of them supplied by the superintendent`s office in the past. This same list shows that the building in South Whitley has a capacity of 720 students. The number of students that will need to be housed is approximately 660. Even if Whitko continues to lose students at the rate of 48+ per year, it would be several years until the middle school campus could accommodate 7-12 without major renovations and additions. Granted, there may be a need for a few portable units at the high school campus to house the influx of art students, etc., but there will be a massive need for mobile units at the middle school campus just to house the core classes. We may as well forget about electives such as welding, culinary arts, and agriculture being offered at the Larwill campus. It appears that Mr. Clason and Mr. Felger have put together bogus numbers relating to proposed expenses for renovations at both sites. Many people believe these numbers to be factual, as they make the Larwill campus appear to be the better option financially, but folks, it just isn't so.
Let's look at athletics for a moment. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Larwill campus doesn't have the competition gym, football field, soccer field, baseball and softball diamonds, tennis courts, and track that the South Whitley campus offers. Phases 3 and 4 of Mr Clason and Mr. Felger's proposed plan calls for building those things at the Larwill campus, to a tune of over $30 million dollars by the time it's all done. Once again, if looked at logically, there is no way any school system that has a steadily declining census should attempt to take on such a debt load at the expense of its tax payers. That would be completely irresponsible.
Maybe I am logical to a fault, and my common sense has gone into overdrive, but it seems to me that the best way to solve some of the financial problems Whitko is facing, and offer our students an even better education at the same time, is to convert the Larwill campus into a vocational/trade school. It is not out of line to explore that option, as Mr. Clason tried to argue with me. It's possible that Ivy Tech, Huntington University, or some other educational institution may very well be interested in setting up a satellite school at the Larwill campus. That would be a win win for all involved. Revenue could be generated from a lease, our students would have the option of taking voc/tech classes closer to home, and the corporation wouldn't be sitting on an empty building that would still need to be heated and maintained. There would be the added bonus of potentially drawing in students from outside the district, which would help in the root of the problem– the bleed of students from our corporation.
There is a school board meeting on Feb. 19 at the Middle School at 6:30 p.m. Please come out and show your support for those board members who made that financially responsible choice and are now being bullied and pressured to revote and flip the outcome to what will most certainly be a slow death blow to Whitko Community Schools.
Annette Arnold
South Whitley
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Just a few short weeks ago, we changed the calendar to a new year, 2018. The new year also ushered in a vote by the Whitko Community School Board to close Whitko Middle School and put grades 7-12 at the high school campus in South Whitley. This vote was the most fiscally responsible way to handle the situation that Whitko finds itself in.
Alas, there are portions of our school district that feel they were wronged nearly fifty years ago, (ironically before many of them were even born), and have allowed their emotions to take control of logic and common sense. Unfortunately, those people have taken their emotions to a despicable level, and have been nothing less than nasty, rude, and downright threatening to the board members that voted responsibly and even to those of us from the general public who have tried to reason with them.
It seems that in all the finger pointing and name calling, the root of the reason for Whitko consolidating buildings has been forgotten. Like many small rural corporations, we are a school system bleeding students. In fact, the student population at the high school alone has dropped a startling 24 percent just since the 2013-2014 school year. Plain and simply put, until the bleeding is stopped, Whitko is in no financial shape to move the high school to the Larwill campus.
The building in Larwill has a capacity of 400 students, according to a list of buildings and basic descriptions of them supplied by the superintendent`s office in the past. This same list shows that the building in South Whitley has a capacity of 720 students. The number of students that will need to be housed is approximately 660. Even if Whitko continues to lose students at the rate of 48+ per year, it would be several years until the middle school campus could accommodate 7-12 without major renovations and additions. Granted, there may be a need for a few portable units at the high school campus to house the influx of art students, etc., but there will be a massive need for mobile units at the middle school campus just to house the core classes. We may as well forget about electives such as welding, culinary arts, and agriculture being offered at the Larwill campus. It appears that Mr. Clason and Mr. Felger have put together bogus numbers relating to proposed expenses for renovations at both sites. Many people believe these numbers to be factual, as they make the Larwill campus appear to be the better option financially, but folks, it just isn't so.
Let's look at athletics for a moment. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Larwill campus doesn't have the competition gym, football field, soccer field, baseball and softball diamonds, tennis courts, and track that the South Whitley campus offers. Phases 3 and 4 of Mr Clason and Mr. Felger's proposed plan calls for building those things at the Larwill campus, to a tune of over $30 million dollars by the time it's all done. Once again, if looked at logically, there is no way any school system that has a steadily declining census should attempt to take on such a debt load at the expense of its tax payers. That would be completely irresponsible.
Maybe I am logical to a fault, and my common sense has gone into overdrive, but it seems to me that the best way to solve some of the financial problems Whitko is facing, and offer our students an even better education at the same time, is to convert the Larwill campus into a vocational/trade school. It is not out of line to explore that option, as Mr. Clason tried to argue with me. It's possible that Ivy Tech, Huntington University, or some other educational institution may very well be interested in setting up a satellite school at the Larwill campus. That would be a win win for all involved. Revenue could be generated from a lease, our students would have the option of taking voc/tech classes closer to home, and the corporation wouldn't be sitting on an empty building that would still need to be heated and maintained. There would be the added bonus of potentially drawing in students from outside the district, which would help in the root of the problem– the bleed of students from our corporation.
There is a school board meeting on Feb. 19 at the Middle School at 6:30 p.m. Please come out and show your support for those board members who made that financially responsible choice and are now being bullied and pressured to revote and flip the outcome to what will most certainly be a slow death blow to Whitko Community Schools.
Annette Arnold
South Whitley
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