By Dr. Dan Eichenbaum
Guest Columnist
School consolidation has been an emotional and divisive topic for several decades in Cherokee County. A logical discussion of this issue for the good our education system is long overdue.
School consolidation involves two connected but separate issues – quality education, and the cost of providing it to our students.
I grew up in a school district with 70,000 residents. We had one combined consolidated high school and vocational school with about 2,000 students. In addition to the basic curriculum– reading writing, arithmetic, history, social studies – students, with parental consent, chose one of five tracks – college prep I, college prep II, general education, vocation and vocation II. On graduation day, all 715 of my fellow students walked across the stage, received the same high school diploma and were prepared for their chosen path in life.
A consolidated high school on the campus of Tri-County Community College provides local students with that very same opportunity to prepare themselves college or employment. The N.C. Career & College Promise program pays for juniors and seniors to take community college courses for free in all areas, vocational and college transfer. Partnering with TCCC allows Cherokee County Schools to offer opportunities that would cost over $30 million to replicate in just one isolated location, such as Murphy High School.
There is absolutely no substitute for hands-on learning. You cannot learn to take apart an engine, be a nurse, weld a pipe joint, write an essay or do math problems on a computer screen. Would anyone want to be the first patient of a surgeon who learned gall bladder surgery by watching a YouTube video?
Learning is best achieved when teacher-student contact reaches critical mass. That “crucible of learning” is what we must create for Cherokee County students.
In 2016, the school board commissioned a study completed in 2017 of our school system by LS3P, a reputable firm with an expertise in school system planning. After several years of study and multiple public meetings, they provided several options to the school board. Repair and updating our antiquated buildings would cost about $80 million, and two high schools would cost about $150 million. One consolidated school would cost about $40 million a portion of which would be offset by state grants.
County taxpayers today are supporting a school system with 13 separate schools with multiple antiquated buildings, and an annual maintenance and repair bill of about $60,000 per month in fiscal year 2021. Most of our schools and classrooms are less than 100 percent full, and the taxpayers pay for 24 additional teachers and upkeep costs on unused areas of school buildings.
Last year, 177 students attended Murphy schools out of their home district. Others have already chosen to attend Tri-County Early College. In addition, numerous families who still work in Cherokee County live in north Georgia and Clay County for a better educational opportunity.
Quality education is essential for Cherokee County to retain current businesses, attract new employers and prevent the relocation of taxpayers to neighboring counties. It is clearly time to stop playing politics with the education of our children and the economic future of our county.
The writer is a local ophthamologist and two-term member of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners.