School leaders do their homework

The work behind the scenes has been incredible.

That thought was impossible to shake after last week’s meeting of the Jay School Board.

For more than an hour, school administrators led the board through a serious, detailed, complex discussion of the details that would be involved if the board goes ahead with a decision to close Judge Haynes Elementary School.

Anyone who has followed the issue would tell you that a decision to close seems nearly certain. The numbers — declining enrollment and a related decline in state financial support — point inexorably in that direction.

But it’s one thing to come to that conclusion and something else again to figure out how to accommodate the educational needs of the Haynes students if their building is mothballed.

That’s where the principals came in.

General Shanks Elementary School principal Julie Gregg, East Elementary School principal Rex Pinkerton, and Judge Haynes Elementary School principal Erica Tomano have been putting in long hours trying to figure out how to make this transition work in a way that is both efficient and kid-friendly.

If you think that’s easy, think again.

With additional students at Shanks and East, how do you structure such basics as lunch? You’ll need three different modules instead of two. And since lunch is served in the all-purpose room, what’s the impact on the schedule for physical education classes?

Every decision seems to knock over another domino and force five more decisions.

And that’s just within the school building.

Transportation director Teresa Myers has been equally busy figuring out how to deliver the Haynes kids to their new schools — all of them will be bused — in a way that’s practical and safe.

It won’t be easy. 

The East Elementary parking lot and traffic flow have been pretty much a nightmare since the school opened. Shanks is maxed-out at the very least.

So there’s going to be some paving ahead.

And there’s going to be more and more planning.

That’s the way it goes if you want to get it right. And these folks seem determined to get it right. — J.R.