School Consolidation Made Worse

During the Monday Board of Education meeting the Superintendent, Dr. Collins-Hart, made a proposal to the board of how they could make use of the schools that they wanted to close to save money. Certainly the first question you have to ask is if they don't close the schools to save money, but still operate them, how can we expect to see any savings from the Elementary school closings that have caused so much anger in the county already?

The proposal however goes from curious to bizarre when you find out what they want to do with Askewville. The proposal is to make Askewville a CENTRAL consolidated school for all PRE-SCHOOL children in the county. Yes, that is right. The proposal is to make nearly every 4 and 5 year old in the county wait for busses early in the morning to be bussed to a single school as far from their parents as the school administrators can place them.

Have the people in our school central administration not been listening to the parents of this county? There were certainly more than enough parents who complained that the previous consolidation efforts were opposed based on opposition to making young children (and their parents) get up early enough to wait for a bus that would take them far away from the parents. Now it isn't just the parents of Askewville, Aulander and Merry Hill whose lives and children will be treated this way. It is the parents and children of every part of our county that will be affected and the drives for many will be longer than the drives that were opposed in the existing ongoing dispute. Roxobel, Colerain, Windsor, out towards San Souci even are being asked to consider bussing their children to Askewville.

Is this what we want Bertie County?

I oppose these consolidations. They DO NOT serve our chilren or our classroom teachers who are the heart of real education. They only serve the education bureaucrats in the central school administration. The rest of America is abandoning the concept of school consolidation. It was tried all across America and has been deemed a failure. Current efforts all across America are being focused on returning to the successful education system that existed prior to all these educrat experiments with our children.

If you have any doubts, check out the information that you find on this web site, www.smallerschools.org It will make you a believer.

Why are we still trying to consolidate when that has been deemed a failure?