North Lawrence Community Schools considering closure of Oolitic Middle School, again

North Lawrence Community Schools is once again considering the closure of Oolitic Middle School, shifting all seventh and eighth grade students in the district to Bedford Middle School, despite a March vote from the NLCS board of trustees that decided against it.

NLCS hosted an informational meeting Tuesday evening in the cafeteria of the Oolitic campus to discuss the reasons behind the proposal with members of the community.

The meeting occurred less than one week after NLCS Superintendent Ty Mungle warned the public that staff reductions may be necessary due to the number of teaching vacancies at the district.

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Maggie Dainton, NLCS director of learning, explained to those in attendance that OMS would face staffing issues if the school opens as planned Aug. 3.

As of Tuesday, OMS has just one English teacher and one social studies teacher for all seventh and eighth grade students at the school; every other teaching position for OMS remains vacant as of Tuesday, Dainton said.

After large numbers of resignations and transfers from teachers at the school, there has been a lack of interest from teachers to come to OMS and fill the openings, despite NLCS contacting universities seeking student teaching candidates, exploring hiring candidates at OMS that applied for other NLCS openings and cross-checking applications with the Indiana Department of Education to find applicants licensed in the needed subject areas.

If OMS were to open with the current number of teachers, students would need to be taught using virtual learning program Edmentum, while being supervised by non-certified substitute teachers.

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If all OMS students were to transfer to BMS, there would be a combined 571 students in the facility, a number that NLCS said the school would be able to comfortably house and educate. For comparison, prior to consolidation in 2020, BMS had 619 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders in the building.

“There is plenty of room to make this transition and it will not put a strain on the facility or its resources,” a slide of the PowerPoint presentation from NLCS read Tuesday night.

The NLCS board will look to host a special board meeting on Friday to vote on the proposal, though no official time and location for the meeting were given during the session.

If the board approves the closure of OMS, there would be an open house at BMS specifically for former OMS students on Monday. There will be an open house for all BMS students on Tuesday and the first day of school would remain Wednesday, Aug. 3.

For the first eight days of the school year, BMS students would attend their core classes — math, social studies, English and science — as normal, but would need to reselect their elective courses, BMS Principal John Hudson explained.

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Board members Wendy Miller and Kamal Girgis were both in attendance and spoke to the audience regarding their thoughts on the proposal.

Miller, who voted against closing OMS in March, acknowledged that, while neither outcome would be ideal for students at the school, she would still like to see it open. Miller would go on to note that the larger problem that needs to be addressed by NLCS is why teachers are leaving the district in the first place.

“We voted to keep it open. That was in March and that is what we still want, I still want Oolitic to be open. I also acknowledge that if Oolitic is open, the kids are not going to get the education that we want them to get. That is clear, OK. What I think that we have to focus on, regardless of how this situation turns out, is we have to figure out why our teachers are leaving,” she said.

Girgis said his goal with OMS remains the same as it did in March, when he voted against closing the school; to have two viable middle schools in the district.

“We made the decision back in March to keep OMS open. Our standpoint before was not to Band-Aid and buy time so we can close it the week before school starts. The goal was to try to create a school that could support itself, that could provide the kids with everything they need," Girgis said. "....BMS has all of this great stuff and OMS is the red-headed stepchild that’s being given the leftovers and that by no means was what we were hoping for. So, we’re trying to figure out a way to bring these schools on an equal ground."

Lacy Hawkins, president of the North Lawrence Education Association, answered questions from attendees about teachers leaving NLCS and the challenges that would come with requiring teachers to transfer to OMS to fill the vacancies. During the 2020 consolidation, some NLCS teachers were forced to transfer to other facilities, leading some of them to leave for jobs elsewhere, she explained.

Addressing the issue currently at OMS, she said she would prefer for students to learn with a certified teacher in their classrooms, opposed to virtually with substitutes.

“We have these two options, right? We don't have teachers at Oolitic and so, what we can do for the students at Oolitic is provide them with an online platform and substitute teachers, or we could disrupt them and put them in a new building, which is going to be scary and disorienting. And neither of those are good options,” Hawkins said.

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Hawkins would go on to note that she would prefer students learn from teachers who are physically in front of them.

“I mean, any day, we'd rather have a student with a teacher than in front of a computer. That's important. So, it comes down to it as much as consolidation is a terrible thing and I hate it; if my options are putting kids in front of computers with substitutes supervising the room or giving them a classroom with a good, licensed teacher, I’m going to put them with the licensed teacher that can take care of them.”

This article originally appeared on The Times-Mail: Oolitic Middle School potential closure discussed Tuesday night