Decisions have been fact-driven

Last week’s decision by the Jay School Board to close the Judge Haynes Elementary School building at the end of the school year wasn’t easy for anyone involved.

As board member Phil Ford pointed out, it’s never easy to close a school.

But if it is reached thoughtfully and rationally and if all of the affected parties — parents, teachers, families — are consulted, a tough decision can be reached with confidence.

And that’s what the Jay School Board was able to do last week: Act with confidence.

Board members knew that the issues involved — declining enrollment, tight finances in the general fund — had to be addressed. There are certain inexorable forces at work, and you can’t simply kick the can down the road.

For the board, this was nothing new.

They’d slogged their way through the same territory when the decision was made a year ago to close the Pennville Elementary School building. 

And when last week’s decision was made, board members knew that still another uncomfortable decision lies before them in 2018.

If trends don’t stabilize or reverse themselves, odds are good that within the next few years much of the student body of both middle schools will be consolidated into space at the Jay County High School building with grades 7 and 8 making the move. 

The Westlawn Elementary School building in Dunkirk will be closed, as will the General Shanks Elementary School building in Portland. The current West Jay Middle School building would become a new home for elementary students, and the current East Jay building would also become a grade 3 through grade 6 facility.

That’s all just a contingency plan at the moment, but it’s going to take a change in demographics or state funding to avoid that plan coming into fruition.

In other words, even with tough decisions behind them — Pennville and Judge Haynes — board members will be facing more tough decisions ahead.

The good news is that they’ll be approaching those decisions with a mountain of data, with demographic analysis, with dispassionate assessment of the problems involved, and with remarkable transparency.

For that, the school community needs to thank Jay Schools superintendent Jeremy Gulley.

He’s not enjoying this. He’s not relishing it. But he has been thoughtfully playing the cards the school corporation has been dealt.

His emphasis for month after month has been on the facts before us as a school corporation. Emotion, sentiment, and local politics haven’t been part of the equation.

It’s been all about the facts.

And while fact-driven decision-making isn’t very glamorous or exciting, it is proving to be the best course of action for working our way out of a challenging situation. — J.R.