Dear Editor:

It was my original intent to limit myself to one letter to the editor concerning the proposed school project which is about to have to weather a remonstrance to survive. After reading a plethora of letters from ex-board member Dr. Morrell, I have decided to indulge myself with one more.

Call me an optimist. I buy the occasional lottery ticket in hopes that the gazillion to one odds are in my favor this week, and I could use the money to build new schools. Then it would not cost the county residents anything. To date, the lottery is still growing and I am going to work everyday.

I am also optimistic that Rush County is going to see a positive influence from the Honda plant and the support businesses which could locate to the area (if we let them.)

I am optimistic that we will see growth in the western and northern townships. Especially, as people realize that we have some of the lowest property taxes around and (will soon have) new schools with great teachers to educate their children.

I am optimistic that the majority of property owners and voters will understand that this is not the perfect project. There is no perfect project. The needs and opinions of county residents is so diverse that we will NEVER all agree on anything. This is an opportunity to DO SOMETHING to bring educational facilities up to date for our elementary children.

On Oct. 9, the Rush County School Board and the “Common Sense” remonstrance group met to hash out our differences and see if there was common ground to which we could agree. There really was not much overlap on our positions. We all agree that we need good educational facilities for our students. We wish to reduce the tax impact on residents as much as possible. We want to increase the quality of education for all students in the school system. I was very surprised how far apart we are on how to get there. First and foremost, this group wants to close Mays school. I am not sure why they want to close that building, but a comment was made by a member of that group (I am paraphrasing as I do not remember the exact wording), “We need to bring those kids into the real world and show them that they are not special.” I was too shocked at the time to write it down exactly. I thought the whole idea was to give all our students the feeling that they are special and have as much chance as anyone else to succeed. Their one school in town idea is great for the Boy’s and Girl’s Club, but a really bad idea as it would make traffic in the area exponentially worse than it is already. It would be terrible for children who live 15 to 20 miles from town and now can’t participate in after school activities.

St. Mary’s, Mays, Arlington and Milroy all have the advantage of the small school environment and a phenomenal amount of parent and community involvement. To lose any one of these schools would be a terrible loss to the school system and the community. The majority of the board thought that some slight redistricting associated with this project would allow RES to achieve smaller class sizes, and that four new kindergarten classrooms at RES would help to get everyone off to a good start. We have got to find a way to get RES that small school environment and level of parental involvement. It is not the town environment. St. Mary’s parents say “Parental involvement, is the difference.”

You want a compromise? How about; We keep the seventh and eighth graders in the county buildings. That would put Milroy way over 300, Arlington at about 200 and Mays at about 230 (don’t hold me to these numbers, they vary from year to year and I don’t have a breakdown of the number of county students in BRMS.) This would allow RES sixth graders to move to BRMS, which would relieve overcrowding in RES. The proposed redistricting would be minimized or in some cases eliminated. Is this the perfect plan? NO, but it might be a compromise.

I will continue to be optimistic that there are new schools in our students’ future, that soon everyone will pass I-STEP, the Pacers will stay out of trouble and win some post-season games, the Colts will win another Super Bowl, and (most of all) this community will come together after this petition process and love each other for our differences. Let’s keep it clean.

Anita Jackson

Rush County school board