Rural Indiana HS's financial woes...

[HoosierFaithful]

Two comments to add to the thread:

1) The more small towns that find a way to get high quality (ideally fiber) internet, the better.  The best economic plan for small towns is remote work.

2) Property taxes funding schools is an asinine formula.  

[5fouls]

3 hours ago, Muddy River said:

As I mentioned earlier, i am mostly an outsider here, but my feeling all along was that consolidation was the goal of the tax referendum.  A plan I'm not entirely against.   Let the communities keep the elementary and middle schools and put the new High School somewhere up around Memphis.  Consolidating would bring a lot more opportunities to the students.  That said, I won't have a dog in this fight much longer, so none of it really matters to me.

The biggest challenge I see to consolidation is it just isn't easy to get from Borden to a centrally located campus (Memphis or otherwise) because of the Knobs, Deam Lake, the landfill, etc.which diminish the direct routes to a centralized location,  Those kids would be on the bus forever.  A more logical consolidation partner for Borden would be East Washington.  Different county, but much more compatible location.    

[NotIThatLives]

23 hours ago, Muddy River said:

In this particular instance, I don't think it was killed simply because taxes would go up.  It was voted down in large part because the division of the spoils so to speak was wholly unfair.  Silver creek stood to take 92% of the money raised, Henryville would've gotten 6% and Borden 2%.  There was no way the parents at the other two schools were going to vote for a tax increase that didn't benefit them.  It was doomed from the start.  There are a lot of dirty things in play here too, like Sellersburg annexing outlying subdivisions taking tax base, and eventually students away from the other schools.  This would be interesting to watch it I wasn't in the middle of it.

Mud, not sure we have ever spoken privately.   For board and discussion sake, I grew up silver creek on st Joe.  Grew up with the Coffmans.  I asked Robin directly on Facebook if the goal all along was divorce of district.  She did not respond though she was active in the thread.  My niece and nephews are at Henryville now, I'm up north in Cicero, so I claim I'm now unbiased.  From the outside looking back in, when the numbers were cut the way they were it was asking for divorce from the get go.  That's not to mention the numbers/formulas the district was giving out had inaccuracies from what was given to the state that came out eventually.  There was sneaky stuff going on trying to get this to pass over people's heads.  The then superintendent acting like a bully in public sessions probably put the nail in the coffin right when it came to light the public was mislead on the formula.

I understand that silver creek takes in roughly 60% of the tax revenues but spends around 40% essentially giving Borden and Henryville 20% of sc money.  They have floated Borden basically forever.   Imo when the dust settles, Silver creek will be better of keeping their own money.  Henryville and Borden will be tight but will survive together.  Henryville will continue to grow slowly but surely being a convenient and cheap commuter town.  

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and have no problem with private introductions.  

 

[NotIThatLives]

I'll add, knowing the creek and Henryville people I know, consolidation is the last thing they want.  SC was open to consolidation back in the 90s, Henryville and Borden rallied together to block it.  I brought up consolidation last year at this time talking about all the benefits to students.  You know what my sister in law and her whole family(original Memphis elementary people) said, "well my kids won't make the basketball team."  News flash.  None of them even play basketball.  It's entrenched in the small town mindset that they will lose something rather than gain.  I said, well all of your kids are into swimming, theater, and get straight A' s.  They would have a brand new pool, which they currently drive the kids to Scribner Middle school in New Albany, for those that don't know, for swim practice.  They would have a new state of the art theater with well funded program.   They are going to have to go to silver creek for honors and more challenging math and science as juniors and seniors or enroll for classes at ius because Henryville can't provide the more challenging curriculum.   You can't talk to these people.  Sc is sick of it.  I expect this vote will be 85-90% for divorce.  

[5fouls]

8 hours ago, NotIThatLives said:

I'll add, knowing the creek and Henryville people I know, consolidation is the last thing they want.  SC was open to consolidation back in the 90s, Henryville and Borden rallied together to block it.  I brought up consolidation last year at this time talking about all the benefits to students.  You know what my sister in law and her whole family(original Memphis elementary people) said, "well my kids won't make the basketball team."  News flash.  None of them even play basketball.  It's entrenched in the small town mindset that they will lose something rather than gain.  I said, well all of your kids are into swimming, theater, and get straight A' s.  They would have a brand new pool, which they currently drive the kids to Scribner Middle school in New Albany, for those that don't know, for swim practice.  They would have a new state of the art theater with well funded program.   They are going to have to go to silver creek for honors and more challenging math and science as juniors and seniors or enroll for classes at ius because Henryville can't provide the more challenging curriculum.   You can't talk to these people.  Sc is sick of it.  I expect this vote will be 85-90% for divorce.  

Not sure if 85% or 90% of the vote is realistic.  I've heard Borden residents are getting skittish.  But, I think there will be enough support in Sellersburg and Henryville to pass it.  I'm not going to get into detailed personal stuff, but lest anyone thinks I am biased, I have significant dual allegiances to both sides of the situation.  I don't think divorce was the best solution, but since the communities could not come to an agreement on the best solution, it's the best remaining one. 

[NotIThatLives]

24 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

Not sure if 85% or 90% of the vote is realistic.  I've heard Borden residents are getting skittish.  But, I think there will be enough support in Sellersburg and Henryville to pass it.  I'm not going to get into detailed personal stuff, but lest anyone thinks I am biased, I have significant dual allegiances to both sides of the situation.  I don't think divorce was the best solution, but since the communities could not come to an agreement on the best solution, it's the best remaining one. 

I wanted consolidation and still would.  Remember the vote for West Clark Wolverines by the students?  Most people thought it was going to happen.

Borden is always just alomg for the ride unless they joined east Washington.  Didn't east Wash reach out to Borden channels and say they would take them in?

[5fouls]

1 minute ago, NotIThatLives said:

  Didn't east Wash reach out to Borden channels and say they would take them in?

That was the rumor and I can't understand why Borden did not jump at that chance.  

I'm against consolidation.  Travel times for some of the students at the periphery of Borden would be too much.  

[rico]

Just to say I am glad I started this thread.  I had no idea what was happening down there at Silver Creek.  Good conversation fellas.

[rico]

Irony at it's finest.  Yesterday I went to my future in-laws for T-day.  All of her family lives in S.E. rural Whitley county.  I listened to them all complain about their property tax increases for 6 hours.  Columbia City is building a new HS.  

[cthomas]

On 11/26/2019 at 2:16 PM, 5fouls said:

There is such a thing as too big as well.  Carmel has an enrollment of over 5,000.  There are few, if any, benefits of being in a graduating class of over 1,250 students.  There has to be hundreds of kids that would like to play a sport, be part of the theater program, or be on the student council, that will never get that chance because the numbers are so overwhelming. 

The sweet spot for school size is probably 750-2,000 students. Big enough to offer a wide variety of opportunities, but not too big that students get left out due to too many kids competing for too few opportunities.  

I live in Carmel, by annexation not choice, and have had kid and grandkids in schools here. Carmel High School has a massive campus and the majority of the kids lost in the crowd. As has been started, the opportunity to participate in most school activities is limited to the highest achievers. Smaller schools, in my opinion, provide much greater involvement chances for kids who are left behind in mega schools. For reference, I graduated from Westfield High School in 1966. We had about 300 kids in the entire high school. I was a three sport athlete, participated in student government, and was involved in student theatrical productions. In a school like today's Carmel I would likely have done none of that. We just passed an increase in property taxes to improve school security which I voted against. We sometimes get lost in the facilities race and fail to provide the kids with the opportunities to feel like they belong to something. I taught for three years after college and experienced what I'm talking about first hand. It's a difficult problem with many competing interests.

[SteveS]

4 hours ago, cthomas said:

I live in Carmel, by annexation not choice, and have had kid and grandkids in schools here. Carmel High School has a massive campus and the majority of the kids lost in the crowd. As has been started, the opportunity to participate in most school activities is limited to the highest achievers. Smaller schools, in my opinion, provide much greater involvement chances for kids who are left behind in mega schools. For reference, I graduated from Westfield High School in 1966. We had about 300 kids in the entire high school. I was a three sport athlete, participated in student government, and was involved in student theatrical productions. In a school like today's Carmel I would likely have done none of that. We just passed an increase in property taxes to improve school security which I voted against. We sometimes get lost in the facilities race and fail to provide the kids with the opportunities to feel like they belong to something. I taught for three years after college and experienced what I'm talking about first hand. It's a difficult problem with many competing interests.

I know and lived exactly what you are talking about. I went to North Central and my senior year we had about 5000 students (more students that Butler had at the time). I was a three sport athlete all through little league and played sports in juniors high, but I didn’t have a chance to make any of the high school teams.  I was athletic, but not highly gifted in sports. Unfortunately, not being in any sports all through high school, I lost focus and went down a wrong path for a while. I really believe that I would have not strayed quite so badly had I still been in sports