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Apr. 28, 2011
While holding a special session at Southern Middle School Tuesday evening the Board of Education voted to accept the recommendation of Dr. Wendell Teets, superintendent of schools, to close Bloomington School.
Though Dr. Donald Forrester, board member, proposed action on the recommendation to close Kitzmiller Elementary School, that motion was not seconded and died on the floor. After stating that the lack of action had effectively kept Kitzmiller open for the time being, Thomas Carr, board president, remarked that he hoped it was "not a hollow victory."
Prior to its vote on the recommendations for school closing, the board met in a private session before taking statements from the public.
With a large crowd gathered in the cafeteria of the middle school, a few concerned citizens discussed the negative impact that school closings might have on their small communities and the children who attended the schools. The public comment session was followed with a presentation by Teets, in which he rehashed the budget deficits faced by the Garrett County school system.
Teets pointed out that the cost per student at Bloomington was nearly double that of any other school in the system, and that even with the $1.7 million recently earmarked for education by the county commissioners, the school system still faced a current budget deficit of somewhere between $600 and $800 thousand with a projected trend of shortfalls in coming years.
In the presentation, Teets discussed the drop in student enrollment, the state funding loss because of the wealth assessment of Garrett County, and increases in operational costs as causes for the deficits. Teets stated that the school system could not maintain the high costs of running Bloomington, and that closing Kitzmiller was a reality that must be faced now or later.
The board members that voted to close Bloomington seemed to do so reluctantly with all commenting on the difficulty of the situation. Those who addressed the audience articulated their sympathies for the affected communities, but shared the sentiment that a sacrifice was necessary to maintain the quality of the school system as a whole.
"Schools are not the concrete, the bricks, but the students themselves. I feel our students can succeed anywhere," stated newest board member Cynthia Downton after acknowledging she had spent sleepless nights considering her final decision.
Similarly, Forrester stated that his vote to close the school came in an attempt to "benefit the mass majority of students."
Rodney Durst, board bember, related a personal story concerning his own experience as a student of a closed school, before emphasizing the "necessity of looking toward the future."
Before voting to close Bloomington, Elizabeth Sebold explained that the funds were not available and that one "makes adjustments when the money doesn't come."
Read the rest here.
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