jslacian@thepaperofwabash.com
More than 175 people gathered at the Honeywell Center’s Legacy Hall on Tuesday night to hear the presentation commissioned by the MSD of Wabash County school district with Yager Educational Services.
The 35-minute presentation looked at the various questions asked of some 512 administrators, teachers, students, taxpayers and others who participated in a series of interviews around the district the last several weeks.
While the study didn’t provide the district with any specific answers as to what its future might hold, it did provide the school board with a series of questions to contemplate before making any decisions.
The biggest question, of course, is whether the school district should consolidate.
Dr. Steve Yager told The Paper of Wabash County that the question of consolidation came up in about 80 percent of the interviews conducted. However, he quickly pointed out, the interviews didn’t pinpoint a specific direction the district should take. A variety of consolidation scenarios were discussed, he said, be it with Wabash City Schools, another school district, a combination of school districts or by itself.
The time it will take to see what the board does based upon the study also is unknown, Yager said.
“It kind of depends from board to board,” he said. “This board will have to determine how urgent some of these things are that were reported on this evening.”
MSD Board President Kevin Bowman said the next step would be a board decision.
“What I would like to see,” he continued, “would be to offer an invitation for Dr. Yager to come in and have a frank discussion with our board in executive session, hopefully. In a sense, hear him out.”
For more on the meeting, see the Oct. 3 issue of The Paper of Wabash County. In addition, the full meeting will be available for viewing later today on Wabash WebTV.