A crowded gymnasium was the setting for a hot topic discussion on Friday night. Parents, teachers, administrators and other concerned citizens piled into the seats on the floor and spilled over into the bleachers. The room was buzzing with chatter about Senate Bill 1382—a bill which proposes to consolidate several of the K-8th schools in the area—and which was authored by Senator Brian Bingman.
Administrators from several area schools were presented as panelists, along with House Representative Mark McCullough. Senator Bingman was noticeably absent.
Related: read our story about the introduction of this bill.
As the talks got underway, it was clear that there wasn’t a seat in the house that felt that this bill was a good idea. Many, including Representative McCullough, understood the impact that these schools have on their community. “What happens to a community like Jay, Oklahoma if you remove this school?” he asked. “Some of these schools, the entire town is centered around their school. If you removed the school, the town would blow away.”
While McCullough assured the panelists and audience that he believed Senator Bingman is “a good man and is really trying hard,” he said he could not support the bill “in it’s current form,” calling the bill “very hard and fast; it’s volunteer the first year and then it’s forced. Very clear cut.”
“How does this bill even have merit?”
McCullough also understood that there was more to the situation than the bill was allowing credit for. “There’s a lot of other factors at play,” he said, referring to the possible economic fallout from consolidation or annexation of these dependent schools. “Moving forward on this bill would likely require additional qualifiers.”
The validity of the bill was called into question again when the time came for comments from the audience. One parent pointed out that the bill is based on the Oklahoma School Consolidation and Annexation Act[PDF], which states that mandatory annexation can only be considered under three occurrences:
- When a school district has been declared “academically at-risk”
- When a school district is non-accredited by the State Board of Education
- When a district, without officially dispensing with school, fails to open or maintain a school.
At the time, none of the schools represented in the panel met any of the three requirements. “How then, does this bill even merit being presented in the Senate?” she asked.
A different environment
Phil Ostrander, a lobbyist for rural elementary schools since 2001, compared the plight of these community schools to their counterparts in urban school school districts. “There’s this perception that a K-8th school with a D rating doesn’t happen in Tulsa Public Schools. Those administrators can choose to pass the blame on to the district,” he said. “These (community) schools provide some of their students with the only meal they get, all day. They are in a completely different environment.”
This is part of a series on SB1382. In our next story, we’ll hear comments from the Superintendents of a few of the schools that are at risk of being consolidated.
