Unintended results are problematic

The rules have changed.

Perhaps irrevocably.

When Southern Wells School Board decided this week to take the unprecedented step of sending buses into adjoining school districts to pick up students, a “gentlemen’s agreement” that had been in place for decades disintegrated.

The board — hearing sincere requests from Pennville area families upset that their elementary school will not open for classes next fall and acknowledging that Southern Wells already has about one in four students coming into the district from outside — apparently thought it was a simple move.

It wasn’t.

And our guess is that it will be months or years before all of the implications of that decision are known.

What was that “gentlemen’s agreement?”

Simply that while students were free to move from one school district to another, the districts themselves would limit their transportation systems to within district borders. A Pennville student, in others words, could attend Southern Wells schools but the student or student’s family would have to have to provide transportation into the new district.

For a number of years now, students from Montpelier — unhappy with Blackford Schools — have gone to Southern Wells under those conditions. So have students from Warren.

But this week the Southern Wells board decided to send buses not only to Pennville but to Warren and Montpelier as well next year.

And that changes everything.

As of this week, district boundaries are more theoretical than real.

If Jay Schools wanted to send a bus to Ridgeville in an attempt to poach some students from Randolph County, it could, using the Southern Wells standard.

If a beleaguered school district like Union wanted to start sending buses to Winchester to boost its enrollment, it could, using the Southern Wells standard.

None of that was intended by the Southern Wells School Board. But those are among the unintended consequences.

And it’s usually the unintended consequences that end up biting you in the end. — J.R.