Paton-Churdan high school students will continue to attend some classes at Greene County High School as they have since 2004. At a special meeting Wednesday evening the Paton-Churdan board of education approved a proposal to the Jefferson-Scranton board that the two districts enter into a one year contract for partial day academic sharing. The contract would renew automatically each year unless one party notifies the other prior to Nov. 1 for the next school year.
The two districts are now in the fifth year of a second five-year contract. The P-C board entertained proposals from J-S and Glidden-Ralston, with several opportunities for community input, prior to making its decision.
About 60 persons attended the Nov. 13 meeting. Fewer than 10 minutes into the meeting, superintendent Rob Olson, who is on a shared contract with Glidden-Ralston and Paton-Churdan, announced the board’s decision. “The best thing for our district to continue to grow and celebrate successes in the future is to continue sharing with Jefferson-Scranton, (or Greene County as it will be next year),” Olson read from a prepared slide show. “Our increased enrollment and open enrolled students are the strength of our district and we do not want to make a decision that compromises the students who attend Paton-Churdan.”
P-C has seen an increase in enrollment of 11 students this year and is one of only a few rural districts that can make that claim, Olson said.
Football was one of the deciding issues. The certified enrollment from Oct. 15 showed that the enrollment, if combined with Glidden-Ralston, would move that school into 11-man football for the next two years. “The board felt very uncomfortable putting Glidden-Ralston into a position where their classification would change from 8-man to 11-man. The board wanted to maintain a positive relationship with our neighboring and area school districts, and didn’t want to put them in a position where that would change,” Olson said.
A possible exodus from Paton-Churdan should the board change the current sharing partner weighed heavily in the decision.
Olson opened the floor to questions. Persons asked for clarification of the length of the contract and the financial arrangement, but the impact on enrollment of a change in partners received more comment. Board members said that most feedback they received from district residents was that many parents would open enroll their students to J-S if the board selected Glidden-Ralston as the sharing partner.
Board member Greg Carey said, “What we heard from the community each time that we’ve talked about it is that Jefferson is kind of like home. ‘That’s where we grocery shop, that’s where we work, that’s where our kids play baseball, and we’re happy with that.’ Really what made the decision was the feedback that we got from the community. We felt that we could potentially lose quite a lot of people.”
“There was a realization that a change could damage the way we do things right here, right now,” board member Troy Paup said. “If we’re misreading a lot of the things we’ve been hearing, that’s why we’re here tonight.”
Richard Consier suggested that in staying with Jefferson-Scranton, an eventual consolidation would happen sooner than if the board chose Glidden-Ralston as a partner.
“I don’t think we’re saying that. What we’re saying is that we like the model we’re in. That’s what we’ve heard from the public. We believe that if we switch partners, we’d probably lose enough people that we would not be able to continue that model. That’s our feeling,” Carey said.
Paton-Churdan will pay Jefferson-Scranton 90 percent of the state per pupil allocation pro-rated for each class attended. In the previous sharing contract, Paton-Churdan paid a minimum amount per year. The contract was amended this year, taking out the minimum. P-C has realized a significant savings with that change, Paup said.
The P-C board anticipates the J-S board will consider its proposal at its meeting next Monday evening. Board president Steve Burrell will send a letter to the Glidden-Ralston board thanking members for their help and cooperation in the exploratory process. The board also thanked Olson, who joined the district in July, for his help.
