No one likes school consolidations. No one wants to see an elementary, middle or high school that has traditionally been a central part of a community shut down for students to be bused somewhere else — sometimes quite a distance — every day.
It wasn’t surprising to see so many people speak from the heart Tuesday against the plan to consolidate East Bank Middle School with DuPont Middle School. Lamentably, it wasn’t a surprise that the Kanawha County Board of Education voted, 3-2, to approve the consolidation.
The measure is one of six consolidations or school closings the Kanawha board is considering. Board members said they, like most everyone else, don’t want to consolidate or shut schools down, but have no other options, considering declining enrollment — which negatively affects funding the schools receive — and deteriorating facilities.
School consolidations are nothing new. They’ve been occurring for decades in parts of America that have lost population following deindustrialization.
Another factor is the conservative movement to defund public education by diverting public funds to private, “micro” and charter schools, along with homeschooling, through voucher programs such as West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship. Gov. Jim Justice even added a bill to this week’s legislative special session that would allow allocating public funds for school buildings to charter schools.