Garrett group hopes to show negative effects of consolidation

Kitzmiller councilman says keeping school top priority
Megan Miller
Cumberland Times-News

— KITZMILLER — While the Garrett County school board prepares to discuss closing elementary schools, a group of county residents is working to show what losing those schools could mean for their communities.

Parents, municipal officials and other concerned residents from areas like Crellin, Bloomington and Kitzmiller are organizing into a coalition called the Small Rural School Focus Group, to advocate for keeping all existing elementary schools in Garrett County.

“My biggest concern is about the communities,” said Angie Paugh, a Kitzmiller resident and mother of four with two children currently enrolled at Kitzmiller Elementary. “This is where my kids play after school. This is where they’re involved in sports. This is where we live. The whole town is really going to go if the school goes.”

The group held its first official meeting July 12, and is in the process of developing research and ways of sharing information with officials and the public on small rural schools in the educational system.

“We really, in Kitzmiller, see it a lot as a community development and revitalization issue,” said Matthew Paugh, a Kitzmiller town councilman not related to Angie Paugh. He pointed out that the town’s 2004 strategic plan called retaining the school its most important priority “by far.”

Paugh said the school is not only a place for educating children, but also a lifelong learning facility for the community. But for that to work, Garrett County’s school system must continue to maintain it.

“The town really doesn’t have the economic resources to pull that off alone, without having something else in that building,” he said.

Angie Paugh said the group’s aim is not to launch a negative campaign against the school system’s board, administrators or other employees. Instead, it will highlight what members believe is the crucial role of small rural schools, and will present the board with alternatives to consolidation.

“Research demonstrates that small neighborhood schools reduce the achievement gap, provide better education and bridge socioeconomic differences,” the group stated in a news release. “These schools serve as anchors for their communities.”

School officials have attributed the consolidation discussion partly to a budget crunch caused by major state funding reductions. The cuts include funds lost because of decreasing student enrollment and because of changes in the way the state calculates aid per pupil.

The board is expected to discuss a timeframe for considering consolidation in its August meeting. A decision on the issue was expected in December. But by law, the board would have until as late as April 2011 to vote on any school closures that would go into effect in the following academic year.

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