Plan to reorganize Colome school district narrowly fails in special election
Jun. 20—COLOME, S.D. — In a close election, voters in the Colome Consolidated School District maintained the district's current geographic boundaries in a special election on Tuesday.
Of the 312 votes cast in the election, 52.2% (163 total) were cast against the reorganization plan, while 47.8% (149 total) were cast for the plan.
The vote split was clear among the geographic sections in the district. Nearly 60% of the votes in the election came from the Colome area, which voted 155 against the plan and 30 votes in support. In Wood, the area from which the petition to reorganize originated from, 91 of 93 votes cast were in support of the new plan. In Witten, 28 votes were for the plan and six were against.
The reorganization plan needed a simple majority to go into effect. Among the pool of 312 votes cast, a flip of nine votes from against to for would have resulted in its passage.
The proposed plan was approved by the South Dakota Department of Education and would have split off the Wood and Witten areas of the school district between Mellette and Tripp counties, and to the White River and Winner school districts, respectively. White River is about 17 miles from Wood, while Colome is about 50 miles from Wood.
In addition to losing about half of its geographic size, if approved, the Colome Consolidated district would have lost about 33% of its assessed taxable value in the district.
Colome Consolidated had maintained schools in Witten and Wood in the years after the three communities consolidated in 2010 but decreasing student numbers and difficulties hiring teachers forced both school attendance centers to close.
