Keep a school in every town

To the editor:

I lived in Pennville almost 60 years, raised four children who went to school in Pennville and had a business in Pennville for 33.5 years.

I watched all the changes happen to Pennville. The many Jay School Boards brought about many of the changes.

Pennville High School went first, of course, and the junior high kids were sent to Portland, to East Jay, but later, West Jay needed better numbers, so Pennville seventh and eighth graders were sent to Dunkirk. The first year of that change, the eighth graders got to finish at East Jay and the seventh graders were bused to Dunkirk. One Pennville family had a child in Pennville Elementary, one in East Jay, one in West Jay and one in Jay County High School that year. Imagine that, four kids in school in four different towns.

Then there was the time I opened The Commercial Review to see a large map on the front page showing the new lines meant the school board had decided that all the other grade schools needed our kids to make their numbers better again. With the drawing of a line, half of our kids were sent to Bloomfield, Portland, Redkey and Dunkirk. Many of those kids still lived much closer to Pennville than their new schools, and guess where they would want to go for summer activities and where the parents would shop when they had to go to the new town?

Another school board decides that the sixth graders should go to Dunkirk. Oops, our numbers go down again, and they even have to build on to West Jay so the sixth graders won’t come in contact with the seventh and eighth graders.

I have felt for a very long time that one reason Pennville was kept open was because of the gym that the people of Pennville built long ago. Over the years, it has been used as an auxiliary gym, but now they don’t need it anymore. They won’t even let the Bulldogs use it for their games.

They have used Pennville for numbers and $$$ for the other county schools, but its usefulness has come to an end, so it is time to dump it?

If they get rid of Pennville Elementary, they only have those few people over there in the corner of Jay County to yell at them. Who else would be paying attention? Well, Redkey, Dunkirk, Bryant and even Portland, you has better bey paying attention because with Pennville gone, they will put someone else at the top of the list to siphon off when they need numbers for other schools.

Joe Vinson has done the hard homework. He isn’t even getting paid. He is just a father thinking about what is best for the kids. It is so important that every town keep a school. I don’t think Pennville will be the last to go. If this school board were to choose Joe’s plan, they would save a lot more money and have a long-range solution for the schools. But I am afraid they won’t consider it because it will upset many more people than those few over there in the corner of the county. They will have people screaming at them from all over the county. Everyone will be upset. But in the long run, what is the best plan?

I would like to see this board get tough and make the tough decision to really try to solve problems for now and the future, not just take the easy way out. Keep a school in every town and really cut the fat out of the system for now and the future.

Close a school in Dunkirk, move all the middle school students to Portland, close a school in Portland then move the school board to the high school so you can sell the building on Tyson Road. Listen to Joe.

Kill Pennville (it is not just the school you will be killing) and save $300,000 per year for the school system or get a backbone, take the heat, listen to Joe and save an estimated $1.4 to $2.4 million per year and keep a school in every town.

Sharon Blankenbaker

Pennville