We have to deal with our reality

It’s Facebook correction time, round two.

Today’s topic, the end of block scheduling and team teaching for Jay Schools.

To be clear, this editorial is not to advocate for or against block scheduling. Rather, it is to correct some of the inaccurate information and comments we have seen on our Facebook page.

First and most importantly, this decision was not about saving $10 million on construction costs. 

Yes, it would have cost more money to reconfigure Jay County High School to provide enough classrooms for junior high and high school students in a block scheduling format. But the school board was willing to take that leap.

It was only when a study showed that block scheduling — it costs more than a seven-period schedule because more teachers are needed, about 30 in Jay County’s case — is not fiscally sustainable long term that the board pulled back.

Second, closing buildings isn’t some grand conspiracy. It is, in fact, long overdue.

Consider the following:

Jay School Corporation had 5,859 students in 1975. It’s enrollment has been shrinking ever since.

Some relatively simple math shows that, based solely on enrollment, the school corporation would have been justified in closing two of its elementary schools as early as the late 1980s. (By 1990, it had lost nearly 1,300 students.)

By 2000, another elementary should have been shuttered.

Now, with enrollment at 3,266 this year — that’s 55.7 percent of what it was 44 years ago — and continuing to slide, the current superintendent and school board are simply cleaning up a mess that has been left for them.

Third, there seems to be some confusion about having spent some money on renovating the General Shanks entrance and parking lot last summer and now “closing” the school.

Yes, the building will no longer be an elementary school. But it will house the central office, preschool and alternative school programs. 

The board did not put money into the building simply to leave it sit empty or sell it. It will be used.

Fourth, let’s touch on the “it’s all about the money” theory.

Yes, you’re right. To a certain extent, it is all about the money.

That’s true because you can’t afford something you can’t pay for.

We’d all like to live in a mansion, drive a luxury car and go out to fancy restaurants every night. But without the funds to do so, we can’t.

The same is true for schools. The entirety of the school board would prefer to keep block scheduling. But with a dwindling student population, and thus dwindling funds from the state, it cannot afford to do so.

The amount of money a school corporation gets for everyday operating expenses — about 90 percent of that is spent on personnel — is set at the state level. Your local board has no control over the amount that comes in. It simply has to do the best it can with what it receives.

Finally, this isn’t just happening here. It’s happening in rural areas all over the state and nation. As population shifts toward suburbs, places like Hamilton County are adding buildings while places like Jay, Blackford, Marshall and Sullivan counties are closing them. (Want more examples? Check out this report from PBS that aired in November — to.pbs.org/2FHFfr3)

No one likes the situation we find ourselves in. But this is our reality. — R.C.