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Bridgewater senior calls for cooperation among communities
Scott
Stahl, Bridgewater senior, submitted the following editorial as a part of a
scholarship competition. It is reprinted here in its entirety.
Small Schools in
South Dakota
Dear Editor:
The situation
of small schools in rural South Dakota has become a battle of epic proportions
that will determine the future of our state. Cities, which were once thriving
with business, are now nearing extinction because of a downfall in the
activity of local economies. Each and every city may have a different
situation, but the overall origin of the problem remains the same, a downfall
in local business, residential development, and student enrollment in local
schools.
Schools are
now faced with reality of consolidation, and this means that a community may
lose its high school. This is a scary situation for a majority of school
district’s patrons. Many view losing their public school as a gravestone that
marks the death of a community. In addition, school districts that are fewer
than a mere ten miles from each other, refuse to work together to benefit the
students because of rivalries that have been in place for decades.
However,
recent state legislation states that schools must learn to cooperate and give
the message that if small public schools want to remain, they will remain
small by choice. This means that schools will suffer economic penalties for
refusing to combine with another school. These state funds are needed to
provide quality education for students around the state.
If recent
trends continue, South Dakota will experience a sharp decline in its
population, and a loss of population would ostracize already ailing school
enrollment figures. People that were once destined to come back to the family
farm are now moving out of South Dakota into the neighboring states of Iowa,
Minnesota, and Nebraska. Recent projections by the South Dakota Department of
Agriculture estimate that in twenty years South Dakota will contain virtually
twenty communities. Although this is a mere projection, this fact is
troublesome and is a tough figure to swallow.
Lost in the
shuffle of this political mess are the students. Students that have been
educated in South Dakota have proven to be above level according to No Child
Left Behind testing. These students are our future and subsequently we must
take into account the best interest of our bright students.
How can we solve this problem of school consolidation? As
South Dakotans we must realize
that we can come together and strengthen our state, a state that has taken
pride in commitment to hard work and our way of life. Consolidation is a
scary word, but by working together and looking past our differences, we can
make South Dakota a better place.
As a member
of a class of eleven students, I have observed trends among the attitudes of a
small class. Students are more than willing to work together with neighboring
towns and develop relationships that improve and expand the curriculum
available to them. By combining with adjacent towns, schools are able to
offer classes and activities that were previously unavailable had
consolidation not occurred. For example, the National FFA Organization is not
offered as a co curricular activity in School A, but if School A combines with
School B which has FFA, students from School A would now be able to be
involved in the organization that helps to build needed leadership skills in
order to develop well-rounded students. In the situation School A and School
B are complimenting each other, and they have both created a situation where
the strong points of each school have created a learning environment that is
beneficial to the students.
I hope that I
have given insight into the debate of small school consolidation by giving the
perspective of a student. We as South Dakotans can use our resources to
develop a situation that is in the best interest of the students of our state,
and by using the knowledge of our past, we can help to strengthen the
education program of South Dakota and build a brighter future for generations
to come.
Scott Paul Stahl, age 18
Bridgewater High School, Class of 2004 |
