1 district instead of 2 likely right formula

If one was creating a school district today for Jefferson County students, absolutely no one would say, hey, let’s have four school districts. Perhaps that made sense in the go-go days, but those days are gone, at least for now and particularly for the three districts in Pine Bluff — Dollarway, Watson Chapel and Pine Bluff.

When Go Forward Pine Bluff was created, one of the areas that it determined needed attention was education and the fact that the lack thereof was hindering Pine Bluff’s ability to, indeed, go forward.

There were and always have been two elephants in that room. One is that it was obvious when the Go Forward conversation on the subject started that some type of consolidation needed to happen. The other was that Go Forward, despite all its analysis of the problems, was powerless to effect any change in the system.

That’s not to say that Go Forward has not been instrumental in opening the dialogue on the subject; certainly, it has. But in the end, there are state laws regarding consolidation and no amount of local yammering on the subject can change that.

That point was brought home this past week. As Go Forward was teeing up a second public meeting to discuss the idea of consolidating the Pine Bluff, Dollarway and Watson Chapel school districts, the Pine Bluff Commercial’s Eplunus Colvin had a story saying Watson Chapel was not in the consolidation conversation at the state Education Department level.

According to state Education Department Commissioner Johnny Key and Stacy Smith, who oversees and helps districts that are headed into or trying to get out of state takeover, Watson Chapel, because it is not in state takeover, is not being considered in the consolidation mix. If there was an exclamation point to all that, it was that the Watson Chapel School Board specifically voted recently to say that the district was not interested in being included in any consolidation action.

That’s not to say that Watson Chapel is in the best shape. As one board member said, the district is up against some strong head winds. But head winds do not equate to the state coming in and taking over. So as far as Watson Chapel is concerned at this point, end of conversation. Is that a mistake for Watson Chapel? That’s for those officials to decide.

So where does that leave Pine Bluff and Dollarway. It is our guess that we will have one school district at some point in the not-too-distant future.

They are both suffering. They are both in state control. There is one superintendent over the both of them, and that has to be a clue of where this is headed. And even though she is a dandy, significant improvements take time.

Go Forward hired a couple of researchers to come in and kick the tires, and they did produce a significant analysis of the three school districts. The state Education Department is also analyzing the situation, and as Smith said, the outside group that has been hired by the state will do a deeper dive into the finances of the two districts and then produce a report of recommendations.

That report is to be turned over to the state Education Board on Nov. 13, and then the board will decide what to do with the information — and likely with the fate of the two school districts — at its December meeting, state officials said.

We can’t help but think that a consolidation of those two districts would be a positive. Consolidation is not the answer typically to academic problems, but sometimes districts’ finances fall below the ability to produce a quality education. Because of falling enrollment, that is what has happened in these two districts.

Pooling resources and eliminating duplication could be the answer for Pine Bluff — and to one of Go Forward’s goals — and that is to create an educational environment that residents are attracted to rather than one that many people have been avoiding.