-
.
Murphy – Families in the Martins Creek, Ranger and Hiwassee Dam school zones woke up Friday morning to learn that their children will be going to different schools starting this fall.
With no advance notice, no public hearing and no one beside faculty and staff at the meeting except for a reporter from the Cherokee Scout, the Cherokee County Board of Education voted to reorganize several schools starting in the 2024-25 school year.
Martins Creek and Ranger schools will become pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary schools, with their middle schoolers moved to Hiwassee Dam Middle School in the case of Ranger and to Murphy Middle School in the case of Martins Creek. Hiwassee Dam’s pre-K through fifth-graders will be moved to Ranger.
The reorganizations would not close any campuses and would require some costs to retrofit, but they do result in annual cost savings and, in some cases, more programs for affected students.
“If it doesn’t improve educational opportunities, it’s not worth it,” said school board member Steve Coleman, who first pitched the reorganizations at the board’s December meeting.
School board member Jeff Tatham said the reorganizations move the school district “in a more efficient direction.”
There was no public hearing nor advance notice that the school board was going to make these decisions at its Jan. 18 meeting. The discussions came up under an agenda item simply stated as “Facilities” under “Old business.”
Superintendent Keevin Woody reportedly said public input was not required Thursday because no schools would be closed.
The school board also plans to consider a proposal to close Martins Creek Elementary School and move its students to Peachtree Elementary School. That idea, pitched by Tatham, came after the board took no action to close Peachtree and move its students to Martins Creek.
The decisions have resulted in backlash, including an online petition at change.org under the title, “Please don’t relocate the Cherokee County kids.” The petition had 129 signatures at press time.
Study submitted
Coleman, along with board members Jason Murphy and Tatham, presented proposals last year to consolidate campuses that resulted in a staff report but no action by the board.
At the board’s December meeting, Coleman made a motion for staff to evaluate new ideas for reorganizations; the results of that evaluation were presented to the board Thursday.
Under the board’s “Board bullets” from the Dec. 14 meeting, the record attributes the proposal to Woody. If the proposal indeed originated from Woody, it wasn’t clear at that meeting, when Coleman made the motion for Woody and his staff to evaluate the proposals.
The votes
The board was split in the plan to move Ranger middle schoolers to Hiwassee Dam Middle, and Hiwassee Dam’s pre-K through fifth-grade students to move to Ranger, for the 2024-25 school year. Members Murphy, Jeannie Gaddis and board Chair Shannon Raper voted against the proposal.
However, school board members Coleman, Tatham, Arnold Mathews and James Ellis, who made the motion, voted for the proposal, resulting in a 4-3 decision to approve the plan.
Ellis said the Ranger decision makes education better and protects Hiwassee Dam High School from being a target for closure.
Raper said she wanted more information, Murphy said he wanted more time to think and Gaddis said she didn’t want to vote. Mathews said he voted for the motion because it has been discussed for a long time.
Tatham then moved that the school district transfer Martins Creek middle schoolers to Murphy Middle, leaving pre-kindergarten through fifth-graders at Martins Creek Elementary. That vote passed on a 6-1 vote, with Murphy casting the lone “no” vote.
There was also a proposal to close Peachtree Elementary and move its students to Martins Creek. That proposal got no traction at Thursday’s meeting, but Woody was directed to evaluate moving Martins Creek students to Peachtree. That evaluation is expected to be presented at the school board’s next meeting Thursday, Feb.15.
Costs and savings
Here are the financials for the two approved reorganizations:
- Murphy Middle School/Martins Creek Middle School: Murphy Middle would need two or three additional classrooms to accommodate the added students from Martins Creek at a cost of $60,000-$90,000. Adding restrooms, which are already in short supply at the school, would cost $143,000-$200,000. Since there would be few changes in faculty and staff, there would be an added annual cost of $26,400 per year, due mainly to added bus routes.
- Hiwassee Dam Middle School/Ranger Elementary School: Costs would be minimal because classroom facilities are sufficient at both schools. Additional transportation costs would range from $39,300-$78,600. Because there are numerous faculty and staff changes, there would be a savings of around $90,000 per year.
- Totals: Annual savings for the two plans would be $63,673. One-time expenses to retrofit facilities would be about $276,500.
Peachtree and Martins Creek
Reorganizations involving Murphy Middle, Hiwassee Dam Middle, Martins Creek Elementary and Ranger Elementary are relatively low-hanging fruit from a cost perspective. It gets more complicated turning to Peachtree Elementary and Martins Creek Elementary, but the annual savings are also high.
Both schools have infrastructure issues – for Peachtree, it’s an aging gymnasium – although more costs could be identified in the study expected to arrive in February – while at Martins Creek, it’s the cost to upgrade its wastewater treatment and add classrooms to accommodate the influx of students.
To retrofit Martins Creek, additional classrooms would be added to the main building; subdividing the library to add two classrooms; and converting the gym stage to a classroom. Total cost, about $1.5 million.
The expanded enrollment would require construction of a wastewater treatment plant to replace the septic system at a cost of up to $1 million.
Those are all one-time expenses of about $2 million. The report did not say how that cost would be funded.
Peachtree Elementary, on the other hand, has issues with its old gym, which would require, at a minimum, a new roof at a cost of about $300,000. Replacing the gym would result in costs exceeding $5 million.
Transportation costs would increase between $47,500 and $95,000 per year.
Savings in annual costs from staff and faculty reductions and consolidation would be $403,441 per year, according to the report.
Public reaction
Word spread swiftly after the Thursday decision, which only could have originated by staff or faculty who were at the meeting and unhappy with the decisions. Michelle Peters, who created the online poll over the weekend, said the interests of children and their parents were not being prioritized.
“Before implementing the merger, we would like the opportunity to have a public meeting to exhaust all other options before making this decision final,” she said. “We think we can pull the community together to find solutions that may have not been previously brought to the table.”
Peters also questioned the legality of the decision. The school board item was titled “Facilities,” but was in reality a rezoning decision affecting which schools children will attend, she pointed out.
She said the public should receive notice about potential votes in an agenda published at least four days before the meeting. However, the school board’s agendas typically aren’t available until the day of the meeting.
Keesha Curtis of Wolf Creek posted this on her Facebook wall: “FYI Cherokee County Families. Some major decisions being made without public input by elected officials that you’ve voted for! Whether you support it or are against it, your voice has been skipped by the BOE! Pay attention to the elected members who voted for this and who voted against it!”
She shared a link to the school district’s information about the plan. “Notice this information was placed public AFTER the board voted on it,” she wrote.
A similar plan was proposed in 2019 but handled very differently. Although not required, the school district, under a different board of education and under the leadership of then-superintendent Jeana Conley, held a community meeting at Ranger Elementary that drew at least 250 people. Due to the feedback received, Conley withdrew her support, and the proposal never came to a school board vote.
“… Although there would be a cost savings, the stakeholder support was not there to make sure it would be successful and, with children hanging in the balance, you can’t take a chance like that,” Conley told the Scout on Monday.
“It was overwhelming that families and the community at the time didn’t support the proposal and without everyone pulling together, it just wouldn’t work.”
Why no live-stream video?
The Cherokee Scout has been unable to live-stream school board meetings because of a lack of reliable cellular connectivity in that area of town and because the school district’s own network won’t allow live-streaming using Facebook’s Business Suite app, which is what the Scout uses to live-stream videos on its Facebook page. School staff has been made aware numerous times throughout 2023 without success.
Woody said earlier Thursday that the school district would be live-streaming meetings itself, although it was unclear how the public could access that live-stream. Woody did not respond to an emailed inquiry Monday.