Greenwood School Board discusses Baird financial feasibility study
By Cheyenne Thomas At a Nov. 4 joint board meeting both the Greenwood and Loyal school boards were presented with a look at what the two districts would potentially face financially if they were to combine into one school district. With many questions remaining on the feasibility and benefits of consolidation, one main question remains in the mind of the Greenwood board: Does the public truly want to pursue consolidation?
The board discussed this very question when reviewing the results of the study during its regular meeting Nov. 21. Now that they had a financial study under their belts that showed Greenwood and Loyal were comparable when looking at an equal partnership in a consolidated school district, Greenwood District Administrator Joe Green asked what the next steps should be.
“We have three different timelines for consolidation,” he said. “The board could adopt a resolution as soon as December of 2025 and have the schools consolidated by the 2027-28 school year, which is one year prior to the end of our current operating referendums. And we’ve talked about some things that would be a benefit to consolidation, like the superintendent position. There would be significant savings there. But we haven’t taken into account other teaching and support staff. We haven’t gotten that far deep into the conversation.”
This lack of knowledge on what a future consolidated district would look like is something that would have to be looked into before any sort of decision is made on joining the two districts together. The board decided to pass a motion to have Green work with Loyal District Administrator Chris Lindner on investigating cost savings that would come from a consolidated district. While that is going on, Green said the question should first be considered if the public even wants them to move forward with continuing a deeper conversation and look into consolidation, or if things should remain as they are.
“We need an advisory question first and foremost,” he said. “We need to put that question to rest (on whether or not the public wants to consolidate). Because if we vote and it comes back as ‘no,’ then we’re done. We don’t need to do all these studies.”
With the advisory question, the board wondered if asking such a question to residents in an upcoming referendum would cause the clock to start ticking on a timeline for consolidation or not, as under state statute, schools are permitted to follow a 12-, 14- or 18-month timeline to consolidate. Green said he wasn’t certain on the answer to that question, having reached out to the Department of Public Instruction for guidance on if an advisory question would have any effect on the consolidation process itself, but having not yet heard any reply from them.
“I hope the answer is no,” he told the board. “Because that is not what we’re looking for right now. We don’t want to go to referendum with a question that is binding. Can we do that or not? We don’t have an answer yet.”
Even though the board is not yet certain on that aspect of an advisory question, Green said that the board should consider putting an advisory question together to be able to ask the public its opinions on the April 1 ballot. To meet that deadline, he said a question would have to be written and approved by Jan. 20, giving both the Greenwood and Loyal school boards about two months to hold the necessary meetings to approve getting the question written and approved for the election.
The board approved moving forward with creating an advisory question to ask on the April 1 election ballot and will be in conversations with the Loyal School Board to set up joint meetings to review and approve a question. The first of these meetings has been tentatively scheduled for Dec. 11 at 7 p.m. in Greenwood.
In addition to talking about a referendum question, the Greenwood board also discussed what sort of timeline the two districts would be looking at in the event of consolidation. The board seemed to favor an 18-month consolidation timeline after a binding consolidation referendum was passed, but the prep work leading up to that sort of vote would also take time.
“Remember, three years is the soonest that we could consolidate,” said Green. “In three years there can be a lot of difference in the way things are with both districts that can change how we’re looking at things.”
The board also approved Green to work with Lindner on creating a general timeline for a potential consolidation that both boards would review when the work is complete.
