Lawmakers oftentimes have the best of intentions.
But sometimes bills that are passed and signed into law end up having less than desirable consequences.
Five years ago, the state of Mississippi, by law, forced the consolidation of all schools in Sunflower County into the Sunflower County Consolidated School District.
Drew High School was shuttered, and it’s students were sent to Ruleville Central High School, where they remain today.
As SCCSD comes to grips with multiple aging buildings, including a high school that is over 60 years old, some in Drew fear another round of school closures is coming.
“I don’t think we need to close another school in Drew,” said Keisha Phillips, who has a daughter at Ruleville Central. “The district needs to look at that I think.”
On top of that, the distance between the Drew-Ruleville area of Sunflower County and the Indianola-Inverness area to the south is between 30 and 40 miles.
The $60 million to $70 million price tag for building a new high school for the north and a new one for the south is almost surely out of reach for a county sitting on a $16 million bonding capacity.
Barring a financial miracle, it’s either going to be a centrally located high school for the entire county, or it’s going to be a new high school for the southern end to replace a 65 year-old Gentry High School that is becoming more difficult and costly to maintain each year.
Brown & Associates, a local education consulting firm, has been hired by the school district to conduct multiple community meetings across the county, administer a survey to the citizens and gather the feedback and data from those meetings and surveys.
The company’s second meeting was held at Drew Hunter Middle School, where around 50 concerned citizens showed up on Monday to ask questions and give input regarding Sunflower County’s options on renovating and building new facilities.
Jermaine Moore, one of the team members at Brown & Associates, said Drew Hunter was one of the district’s under-utilized facilities, meaning it could accommodate more students than it is currently serving, something he said drives up maintenance costs and cuts down on efficiency.
“We have facilities that may accommodate a large number of students that only a small amount of students occupy it on a daily basis,” Moore said.
Three Options
Brown & Associates laid out three options for the Drew community on Monday night.
The first is to build two new high schools, one to replace Ruleville Central in the north and another to replace Gentry in the south.
As mentioned, this is the most expensive option, nearly doubling the cost of a single facility (whether a central school or a replacement for Gentry).
This cost does not include upgrades to existing facilities.Option two is the centrally-located high school. This comes with a price tag between $25 million to $35 million, which Brown & Associates says will likely be on the high end of that range.
This does not include costs for running infrastructure to a potential site, something that could run at a minimum between $2 million and $3 million.
“You have the possibility of having infrastructure issues,” Moore said, which include water, sewer, utilities, Internet and wi-fi, to name a few. “You have to look at where that location is.”
This also does not include the costs of revitalizing existing buildings, something that will almost certainly have to be in any plan put forward by the district.
The third option, as Moore put it, would be to construct a replacement for the high school that is in the worst condition, with a plan that would revitalize and repurpose existing facilities.
“It will be based upon the immediate need,” Moore said.
Moore said this school would likely accommodate around 600 students and would run on the lower end of the $25 million to $35 million range.
A Complicated Vote
Because every community from Rome to Inverness is included in the SCCSD, the vote on a potential bond issue for folks in the extreme northern end of the county is complicated.
Talk of improving or building new facilities is met with skepticism from some in Drew, who believe any new school facility is likely to be built in the southern end of the county, toward Indianola.
Parents like Phillips were outspoken this past year against a company that was attempting to place a charter school in the Drew community.
Phillips said the current push at the district level, like the charter school, would lead to another community school being closed. She wants assurances that will not happen.
“If you take away another school, what do we have left besides another building that is empty, to be vandalized?” she asked. “This is home. Let’s be more specific with what that (improving facilities) actually means.”
The Cost
The decision is complicated, but the numbers are simple.
Sunflower County has a bonding capacity for new school facilities and upgrades of around $16 million.
While the $60 million mark seems unattainable at the moment, Moore said the county could pool together other funds for either of the two cheaper options currently on the table..
Moore estimated that passing the bond would amount to a $38 cost per taxpayer per year.
In mid-December, Brown & Associates will deliver its final report to the district.
The next community meeting will take place at the Inverness Elementary School Cafeteria at 6 p.m. on Monday.
