Nobrainer’s Think Tank

I’ll begin this post with a little history lesson. For about the last fifty years in Ohio, the trend with school districts was to combine small ones and form larger ones. This was true with my hometown. Sometime in the 50’s the Lemon/Monroe Local District merged with the nearby, and much larger Middletown City School District (MCSD). Fast track this to the late 90’s while I was a senior in the smaller Lemon-Monroe High School (LMHS). At this point Lemon Township had mostly dissolved, and Monroe had grown enough to become an official city. The MCSD was facing huge budget problems because Middletown voters generally opposed all the levies that the MCSD tried to pass. The votes, however, were always positive from the voters of Monroe. So, in the late 90’s, the MCSD announces that they need to close schools in order to cut operational costs. One of their proposals is to close the aging and neglected LMHS and send it’s 800 students to Middletown High School, about 15 minutes away. These proposals do not go over well with the residents of Monroe. After a few years of legal battles, the districts officially separated. This was the first instance of a school district split in Ohio in decades. Now, construction is nearly complete on all new facilities to replace LMHS and the Monroe Elementary School.

OK, we’re done with the history lesson.

My mother works for the MCSD. About a week ago the teachers in a few schools (including hers) were informed that there schools would be closed, torn down, and rebuilt. This is great, as most of the schools are really old. However, there are now about 1000 displaced students. Initially the teachers believed they would be sent to the soon-to-be vacated LMHS (remember this is about 15 minutes from their location). Imagine being a small child sent that far away. Finally, the decision was made. One of the middle schools will become the new home for the displaced elementary students, and the middle school kids will be bussed to the old LMHS. And from what I hear, they may have to spend nearly $500,000 per year to rent the old building. So now they will be paying to send their kids to a building they used to own. The kids in the new Monroe Local District will have their brand new facilities, and get to enjoy free income from all the rent they’ll receive. It sounds like they’ll be having their cake and eating it, too.