Referendum,

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“There are some people who are going to say, ‘I don’t want a high school in Loyal,’” he said. “Why are we putting this question on the ballot when we are not saying which school is going to have the high school?”

Whilethedifferentmembersoftheboardandadministrators agreed that no one wants to see the loss of a high school in either city, they pointed out that asking the question this way has always caused conversations on consolidation to fail. For decades, the question has come up and each time, the schools tried to answer the question on the high school location before asking the public about what they wanted. They have never thought about looking at both communities already operating as one unit.

“In the past, we have looked at the question as Greenwood versus Loyal, pitting one community against another,” said Green. “By focusing on both districts together, as one, it gives us a different perspective on this question than we have tried before. If we continue to do things the exact same way that we have been doing things for the last 60 years, we’re just going to continue to go back and forth. We need to be able to move forward with this conversation and look at how things will work together. This needs to be looked at with how the schools will be together as one district. Not as Greenwood versus Loyal. We need to look at what is going to give our kids the best education.”

“The education of our kids is not going to change based on what building the high school is in,” added Eliza Ruzic, Greenwood board member.

“To me, I am voting on what is the best thing for the school,” added fellow Greenwood board member Luke Smith. “I’m not voting for the city council or for the businesses. I’m voting for our kids and their future. That’s what this is about.”

Declining enrollment numbers and rising costs of taxes are also things that were talked about as reasons to consider the change of strategy with regards to a consolidation question. If nothing is done at this point, the members of the board expressed concern that things would only continue to get worse for the districts and community.

“Enrollment is not going up,” said Green. “If all a community needed to thrive was a high school, then why is everyone’s enrollments continuing to go down? No one’s enrollments are going up. We’re better off trying to build something together than trying to do this on our own. I don’t know yet what that will look like, but we have to try.”

“No one wants a community to dry up,” said Lindner. “But tax bills are still high and referendums are only asking for more and more money. It’s not getting any cheaper. We need to try to do more stuff together.”

“At some point, a school referendum may not pass,” added Loyal member Tom Odeen. “If it doesn’t pass, we’re going to end up having to make cuts. But at a certain point, you can’t cut positions anymore. Expenses have to be cut.”

Even a few community members present at the meeting spoke in favor of the change in perspective on the referendum question.

“When my grandparents were in school, there were 80 kids graduating in a class,” said Nick Stieglitz. “When I graduated, there were 40 to 50 kids. Now, there’s around 20 that graduate each year. I agree that we need to quit taking sides. It will never work if it’s always us versus them. No one wants to lose their high school, but right now we’re being given a choice on how we want our communities to move forward. Because if the state comes in, they will be the ones deciding where your kids go. Are we going to wait until our class sizes have six to eight kids? Maybe then we’ll do something?”

The two boards both passed motions to go to referendum in April, asking residents a polished version of the question, “Do you support consolidation between the Greenwood and Loyal school districts?” The question would be finalized and sent to board approval in January and would be answered in a simple yes/no format. The referendum would be advisory only, meaning the districts would not be bound to the outcome of the vote.