LETTER TO THE EDITOR | Consolidation must make sense

To the editor:

I am at a loss to understand the projected improvements, additions, luxuries, pie-in-the-sky projects which our school board is considering for the middle school/high school consolidation. Are we to believe that our community will be expected to pay for a

$43 million-plus school complex?

Designating those improvements, etc., as “preliminary” and only a “wish list,” signifies that the board doesn’t expect to end up with all those things (e.g., two covered tennis courts when we already have seven outside ones), and is expecting us all to give a huge sigh of relief when some of those outrageously expensive items are eliminated.

Considering our declining enrollment and the current state of the economy, why do we need to build a Taj Mahal? More classrooms? According to previous articles in the Record, there is plenty of room to accommodate the younger students and at one time even mentioned moving the administrative offices to that site.

More parking? Twelve-, 13- and 14-year-olds don’t drive. Another gym and a field house? What’s wrong with the current gym and why do they need a field house? I could go on and on.

The general idea behind this consolidation was to eliminate the cost of upgrading and retro-fitting the current middle school by moving those students to the under-used high school building. Now we are being asked to approve expanded facilities for a dwindling student population.

That doesn’t make sense — either financially or educationally.

Jean Goodfellow

Clinton

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