Win one for the small schools, Eminence Superintendent Pride urges legislators

Saturday, March 23, 2013

During one of the pivotal moments of the sports film classic "Hoosiers," Gene Hackman, as Coach Norman Dale, asks his Hickory Huskers if they have anything to say before breaking out of the locker room to play for the Indiana state basketball championship.

Farm boy Merle seizes the moment to impart some time-honored Hoosier wisdom.

"Let's win this'n for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here," he says, leaving the normally vociferous coach to nod his head affirmatively and tear up in silence before telling his team, "I love you guys."

Venerable Eminence School Supt. Murray Pride seemed to be reliving that moment recently as he lobbied the three legislators serving Putnam County -- State Rep. Jim Baird (R-Greencastle) and State Sens. Pete Miller (R-Avon) and Rodric Bray (R-Martinsville) -- to consider the impact the inherent inequities in the school funding formula and related education funds have on smaller schools.

"They used to be on consolidation kick," Pride said of state efforts to merge smaller systems like Eminence with bigger neighbors under the notion it would save money all around.

"Now it looks like we're on a starvation kick," Pride said. "I'm not sure that's totally accurate but that's how the small schools feel."

Pride asked that legislators "consider the value of an education in a small school and not starve us to death."

Eminence, which has 434 pupils in K-12 with elementary, junior high and high school all under one roof in northwestern Morgan County, isn't the smallest school corporation in the state but is one of the six to eight tiniest, Pride said.

Cannelton, for example, graduates 12-14 students a year, Pride said, while Eminence will see 40 seniors donning caps and gowns this May.

The value of a small school education shouldn't be overlooked in the crush of numbers, Pride said.

"There's a lot to be said for the sense of community you get from a small school and being part of that community environment where everybody knows everybody and the teachers know all the students and the parents," he said.

Pride, who retired as North Putnam school superintendent in 2009 after 15 years at the helm there, said just because a school's enrollment goes down doesn't mean it can cut costs across the board and save piles of money.

The enrollment decline might not be enough in any single grade level to allow any reduction in staff or spending cuts, "especially if the losses are spread across all 12 grades," Pride said.

With the state showing a surplus currently, Pride suggested the legislators restore the $300 million cut from schools in the belt-tightening movement of two years ago.

He also suggested that if legislators are going to expand the voucher program that they create a school fund and "not fund vouchers out of public school funds because that reduces the amount of support each public school receives."

"We are really in a 'Catch 22,'" Pride added.

Rep. Baird assured him that the legislators want to help the school situation.

"I want to see the money go to schools," Baird said. "I want to see it go to teachers, especially the good teachers."

Sen. Miller, meanwhile, suggested that a funding formula based on every child "costing this much to educate just isn't reality."

"I'd like to see more data on the money schools get per child," he added.

Besides school funding, the final Legislative Update session of 2013 also went to familiar issues.

Commissioners Nancy Fogle and Don Walton brought up their favorite topic for the legislators -- funding for local roads and bridges.

Baird, a former county commissioner himself, was cautiously optimistic in talking about more money for the state's infrastructure concerns.

"We've been having the best discussion we've ever had on infrastructure, roads and bridges and all, even high-speed Internet," the second-term legislator said. "I hope that continues."

Fogle said she's even heard county residents saying something almost unimaginable in years past: That they would "rather have better roads and schools -- even if it meant paying more in taxes."

District 37 Sen. Bray said he, too, has been "hearing that a lot."

Hoosiers would rather pay more in taxes if it guaranteed such improvements, he said.

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