Additional consolidation?

Enrollment decline in Jay Schools has accelerated dramatically, and further consolidation may be inevitable.

Friday was the official count day for the Indiana Department of Education, and the numbers were not good for Jay School Corporation.

“It was the single worst enrollment decline in 10 years, and it comes on the heels of the previous worst decline in 10 years,” superintendent Jeremy Gulley told Jay School Board on Monday night.

Enrollment dropped by 132 students when compared to last fall. That’s 94 fewer students than had been projected by a demographic study commissioned by the school corporation earlier this year.

“That’s an absolutely stunning hit on revenues,” Gulley noted, since state funding is directly tied to enrollment.

The latest drop is part of a trend stretching back to the 1970s. Overall enrollment is down 48 percent since 1974 and has dropped every decade since schools were consolidated.

That trend has already led to the closing of Pennville and Judge Haynes elementary schools.

Now the board faces a decision that would reduce the total number of school buildings in the corporation to six.

As outlined by Gulley over the past several months, the plan would:

•Send grades seven and eight to a reconfigured Jay County High School, with an emphasis on keeping junior high students separate from high school students.

•Convert the current East Jay Middle School building into an elementary for grades three through six.

•Convert the current West Jay Middle School building into a kindergarten through grade six elementary, replacing Westlawn Elementary, which would be closed.

•Convert Redkey and Bloomfield elementaries into kindergarten through grade six facilities. They are both now kindergarten through grade five. 

•Reconfigure the General Shanks Elementary School building for central office, pre-school and special programs and services.

•Sell the Pennville, Judge Haynes and Westlawn buildings along with the current Jay Schools central office in the former Portland Armory on Tyson Road.

“The decision point is in December,” said Gulley. “This should not be a new story. … I assume it will take two years to implement.” That could stretch to three when the timelines for financing necessary work to reconfigure those buildings is taken into account, he added.

The enrollment decline, he stressed, cannot be ignored.

“I can’t predict for you that we’ll go up,” said Gulley. “We’re not going to snap back.”

From 1970 to 1980, enrollment dropped 13 percent. From 1980 to 1990, it dropped 19 percent. From 1990 to 2000, it dropped 12 percent. From 2000 to 2010, it dropped 6 percent. From 2010 to 2018, it dropped another 14 percent.

That drop is particularly evident at JCHS, which declined from a 1975 enrollment of 1,667 to 977 today. “You’ve gone from four digits to three,” said Gulley. “That should send a pretty strong signal.”

When it comes to further consolidation, he said, “The only place you can go is seven to 12 at the high school. It is within the capacity of the building.”

Without some action on consolidation, Gulley and business manager Brad DeRome noted, the school corporation will soon be headed into red ink.

While DeRome is still projecting that Jay Schools will end 2018 in the black. The outlook in future years is grim.

Further complicating the financial picture is the agriculture tax cap cuts that were implemented by the Indiana General Assembly. 

Those are expected to reduce school corporation revenues by $177,000 next year and as much as $335,000 annually by 2022, based upon estimates by accounting firm Umbaugh and Associates.

The reorganization plan sketched out for the board Monday is estimated to save the corporation about $1,151,000 per year. By way of comparison, cuts in programming — block scheduling, team teaching, Reading Recovery and elementary computer classes — would only save about $628,000 a year.

Savings from the reorganization plan would primarily come from staff reductions. Gulley estimates that 13 certified positions and 14 non-certified positions could be eliminated for a savings of $861,000 annually. Another $216,000 in operating expenses and $74,000 in food service expenses would also be eliminated.

But reorganization would also require further school renovations, and construction cost estimates have not yet been put together.

School administrators and teachers are still reviewing a host of complex and inter-related issues involved in further consolidation. 

Among them: Transportation, how best to separate junior high and high school students in the same building, use of gyms and athletic facilities and instructional time at the elementary level.

Two different options at the high school have been the subject of discussion for months and will continue to be.

“The architect is probably ready to strangle all of us,” said Gulley. “We still have several more months. I’m going to continue to work that (study) group.”

Those issues will come back to the board in October and November. Transportation will be one of the more complicated questions as the board tries to increase elementary instructional time while also reducing student time on buses.

“We need an outside third party to look at transportation,” Gulley said.

Classroom size would not be an issue under reorganization, according to Gulley.

In other business, the board unanimously:

•Agreed to cancel the current Area 18 agreement for career and technical education and approve an amended version that prohibits participating school districts from sending buses across district boundaries to “poach” students. That point has been a subject of conflict with Southern Wells Schools, which sends buses into the Pennville area in Jay County as well as into Blackford and Huntington counties.

•Approved the 2019 school corporation budget that had been advertised and had been the subject of a public hearing last month.

•Hired Caitlin Gilbert, Kristen Schoenlein and Amy Hawbaker as instructional assistants.

•Approved leaves of absence for custodian Ventura Moreno, East Jay principal Fred Medler, food service cook Kris Cook and General Shanks principal Erica Tomano.

•Approved the retirement of food service cook LuAnn Champ.

•Accepted the resignations of instructional assistant Carrie Fry, food service cashier Kim Shannon and bus driver Lois Ridgway.

•Approved extra-curricular assignments for Megan Downham as student council sponsor at West Jay, Lori Sims as sponsor of the yearbook, newspaper and Just Say No at East Jay, Mark Alberson as football coach at East Jay, Madison Brown as assistant cross country coach at East Jay, Whitney Gray as assistant girls’ golf coach at JCHS, Butch Gray as girls golf coach at JCHS, Ed Geesaman as seventh grade volleyball coach at East Jay, Amy Dillon as sixth and eighth grade volleyball coach at East Jay, Patrick Byrum as assistant baseball coach at JCHS and Krista Chenoweth as assistant gymnastics coach at JCHS.

•Accepted the extra-curricular resignations of Christie Sommers as middle school swim coach and Steve Wickliffe as middle school and assistant high school swim coach.

•Contracted with Behavior Associates of Indiana, Hillside Therapy Services and Ball State University for services.

•Approved field trips by JCHS thespian students, JCHS agriculture students, the JCHS band and guard, East Jay eighth grade students and JCHS architecture students.