The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners and Board of Education meet Monday to talk about the future of Cherokee County Schools on Sept. 16. There has been animosity between the two boards since the school board decided to consolidate two of the middle schools in the county, without holding a meeting for public comment. But that is not what this column is about.
The school board is going to ask commissioners for money to upgrade Murphy Middle School. I have watched the board’s meetings and know of at least two plans they have considered. One of the plans is to add two bathrooms onto the school at a cost of about $300,000. The other is to add bathrooms and dressing rooms in the gym so students have a place to change at a cost of about $750,000.
The second plan is actually what is needed. The bathroom addition is only a Band-id on a problem that has existed since the school was built.
Whatever the boards come up with in future plans for facilities, this school with be part of it. So, if we are going to do upgrades to this school, let’s do it right the first time.
I know commissioners are on a tight budget and trying to control spending as much as possible in order to keep taxes down, but it will cost more to fix this a second time than to do it correctly. That became evident at
the last commissioners meeting, when a paving project at Hiwassee Dam ballooned from the original request of $40,000 to over $700,000. I beg the commissioners to be the adults in this situation and do what is best for students by going ahead and putting in both bathrooms and dressing rooms.
I have a proposal, not for facilities, but for a plan that will give all stakeholders in the school system – including the biggest stakeholder of all, the parents – a say in what those facilities should look like in the future.
Make Cherokee County Schools an open enrollment district. Let the parents decide where they want their children to attend.
The first objection to this would be hard for the school district to manage because you would need to know how many students are going to be in each school the following year. To solve this, every parent would have to declare where they were planning on sending their child in the spring.
The second objection would be transportation. If there are bus routes to any of the chosen schools, allow students to ride those. If not, the parent would be responsible for transportation back and forth.
The parents will decide where and what schools need to be updated and after about three years, commissioners should have enough data to move forward on drafting a plan that represents what the parents of Cherokee County chose by casting a vote in a most powerful way.
If these future plans were made this way, you would please the one set of stakeholders that should have the largest voice in this matter – parents.
Will this please everybody? Not a chance. However, at least the decisions would be based on data.
The writer is a resident of Cherokee County and staff correspondent for the Cherokee Scout.