Andrews – Andrews Mayor James Reid started off the Aug. 23 board of aldermen meeting with an apology.
Following years of study and preparation leading to a plan to consolidate Cherokee County’s high schools – a plan that turned out to be doomed – Reid said he didn’t do his homework.
At a meeting of the board in July, Reid said the high school consolidation plan was “forced down our throats.”
“I didn’t do the homework, I didn’t go to meetings – I was complacent,” Reid said.
As the long process wound on, Reid said he didn’t think Andrews would lose its high school until in December 2022, the plan to consolidate three high schools into one came down to a vote of the county board of commissioners over whether the county would pay its share of the cost – a $2.5 million local match to receive a $50 million state grant.
The board, fresh off the November elections with a new majority, rejected the match and doomed the project.
“Now as mayor, I realize I have to be on the ground level,” he said.
In the July meeting to hear a proposed consolidation plan that would leave the county’s three high schools in place but consolidate others, Reid was discouraged when just four people showed up to hear the proposal.
He said he was wrong when he said the plan was “forced down our throats.”
The plan resulted from a long process of meetings and public hearings, led by then-county schools superintendent Jeana Conley. Reid and Conley have known each other since he was 12.
“Working at the school system, I see how important it is that we don’t have 13 different schools and facilities to take care of,” Reid said. “We can’t do it. Our school system is not going to last another 20 years if we don’t figure out a better way to handle things.”
He said neighboring Clay County has it figured out – a smaller county with beautiful school facilities after it received multimillion-dollar state grants with relatively small local matches.
“Cherokee County sent back $50 million,” he said. “That’s not going to look good with the state.”
Reid said he opposed the plan to consolidate high schools, but he thanked Conley for her hard work and years of service.
“I dropped the ball, and so did hundreds and hundreds of other Cherokee County citizens, for not going to those preliminary hearings to say what they want,” he said.