I noticed that the local shopper paper has a big full-page full-color election ad on the pack page. (…because everyone looks for voter information in the shopper?) The ad is part of a campaign to dissolve Oldham-Ramona-Rutland School District, with the proponents claiming that it’s a reorganization plan in the text of the ad.
Yet, in the header of the ad, it does offer the caveat that it’s a plan to dissolve the ORR School District.
When taken against the fact sheet provided by the District, the advertising is a bit contradictory.
The pro-side notes that the consequences of not passing it is that they’ll lose sports programs and staff. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if they pass that and dissolve the school district, aren’t they going to lose that anyway? According to the fact sheet on the election put out by the district:
What does a vote FOR the reorganization plan mean? A vote FOR the plan is a vote to CLOSE and DISSOLVE the ORR School District. If passed, this decision is FINAL, and the District will be formally closed under SD Law.
What does a vote AGAINST the reorganization plan mean? A vote AGAINST the plan is a vote to keep the ORR District OPEN.
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- The number of ORR staff who will be terminated upon dissolution = 42 employees.
- The number of ORR students who will need to enroll in other districts upon dissolution = 193 students.
I think that kind of lays it out there.
With 2 weeks left in the election, there’s not a lot of time left for the opposing sides to make their case on whether to keep the schools open, or to shut them down, fire all the teachers, and bus their kids elsewhere.
When the very first (of four) bond election failed, the board needed to step back and reexamine the whole idea of a new campus in the geographic center of the new district. It was a poor location and not close to where the majority of the student population lived. 330 students made for an economically feasible district; 193 is not especially when close to 50 of the students attend class at Hutterite colony schools. By not listening to the patrons among other mistakes made led to this vote to dissolve.
Oldham, population 121, is the smallest and most remote of the three.. It is 28 miles from Rutland, 12 miles from Ramona, 25 miles from Madison and 19 miles from Arlington. With the smallest population they do not have the votes to keep the district together.
The people in Ramona, population 206, and Rutland, population 274, will have no problem bussing the kids the 12-14 miles into Madison. People on the east side of Rutland also have the equally easy option of sending kids into Colman.
It is Oldham which is getting left out in the cold but that town is dying. They are likely the most motivated to keep the district intact, but they don’t even have enough population to support a gas station.
Rutland does not have a population of 274, it has a school, 1 nice home, and a corn field. There isn’t even a road sign announcing “Rutland”. There is no town, village, or settlement there anymore. If this issue needed to be addressed why did they bring it up after Ramona demolished their school leaving them no school just a gym?
Last December, 567 voters in the ORR district showed up to vote. They must live somewhere.
According to the Madison Daily Leader, the ORR district had 1050 registered voters as of last December.
Yes the district of ORR has that many people but the town of Rutland itself has about 4 people. It is a school and nothing else. 274 of them do not live in Rutland
https://dakotafreepress.com/2022/05/12/oldham-ramona-and-rutland-to-consolidate-school-districts-in-2023/
You must be mistaken. According to this article from CAH, the original consolidation vote
in 2022 IN RUTLAND, separate from Oldham-Ramona, was 124 for, 117 against, and 215 of them stayed home. That was a total of 456 registered voters in the original Rutland school district. They are not all living in a cornfield, no matter how badly you wish to believe it.
You forgot about Lake Preston which is only about 12 miles away.
Lake Preston will die soon too if they don’t get the Gevo plant.
Schools need to be forced by law to consolidate. Local school boards do not have the backbone to do it even if it it makes sense. Show me where in state law it allows taxes to be levied on rural land to keep a town alive or to keep teachers employed.
The same can be said for county government and court houses.
I feel like if we are this strapped for cash there are a lot of other places to look before cutting schools. There should be leadership from the federal side as well on this issue. I heard we have so much tarriff money we don’t even know what to do with it, well here is an option!