OT - Union County School District Bond Issue

[Lord McBuckethead]

Bunch of 1A/2A size schools like that makes no sense.

Buddy, the county takes about 60 minutes to drive across.

[Cooterpoot]

Buddy, the county takes about 60 minutes to drive across.

So, it's still too many small schools.

[Johnson85]

Buddy, the county takes about 60 minutes to drive across.

60 minutes across means most people can get to a central school in 30-40 minutes. That's certainly not ideal, but there are no ideal solutions when you are trying to educate children in a sparsely populated area.

[Goldendawg]

Even some some small schools now feature Football, MBB, Baseball, Golf, Archery, Track/Cross Country, Weight lifting (Men & Women), Soccer, Tennis, WBB, Softball, Volleyball, & Bowling. A lot of this gets help with constant fund raising by booster groups. Coaching staffs, facilities, referees, utilities, travel, uniforms & travel are not cheap.

[DownwardDawg]

I love Mississippi. It will always be home to me, but since moving to Tennessee 2 years ago I'm like "wow". What a difference.

[Pinto]

Best thing for Union County is to consolidate to one high school. K-6 at the current schools and 7-12 at a new school. Most of the county schools don?t offer enough credits now to be accredited. The only reason they are is the CTE classes. That being said none of this will ever happen because the people that teach there grew up there. No mobility in any of the communities and the only identity the communities have are the schools. Also no superintendent that has ties there will have the nuts to shut anything down.

Lastly, no county in MS should have more than one school district. Needs to be a law. If Desoto can have one district, all counties can.

[Lord McBuckethead]

Best thing for Union County is to consolidate to one high school. K-6 at the current schools and 7-12 at a new school. Most of the county schools don?t offer enough credits now to be accredited. The only reason they are is the CTE classes. That being said none of this will ever happen because the people that teach there grew up there. No mobility in any of the communities and the only identity the communities have are the schools. Also no superintendent that has ties there will have the nuts to shut anything down.

Lastly, no county in MS should have more than one school district. Needs to be a law. If Desoto can have one district, all counties can.

Oh, I agree with all of this. But.... they couldn't pass an 18.5 million bond, a new High School (which would absolutely be the correct thing to do) would cost 100+ million.

[Johnson85]

Oh, I agree with all of this. But.... they couldn't pass an 18.5 million bond, a new High School (which would absolutely be the correct thing to do) would cost 100+ million.

A $100M school in a county of 25k people is crazy. I think a big problem is people have to understand that schools in a county with 25k people just aren't going to look like schools in towns with 50k people. They can have a decent school in New Albany and it looks like just about everybody in the county could make it there, depending on where it is, within 30ish minutes, probably 45 at the worst. That school is still not going to look like a miniature college campus. It's not going to have the latest and greatest anything unless a private donor ponies up for something he/she cares about in particular.

The alternative is to have two super bare bones schools spread out some more. But with the way building costs are now, I'm just not sure you can build it basical enough for that to really be economical either.

[Offshore Dawg]

How much is enough ? Between Tupelo & Lee County schools are spending almost 250 million a year. School taxes are by far the largest part of real property taxes. Schools are an out dated failed model as now executed.

more money to be stolen.

[Wink&aPrayer]

Until districts talk consolidation, then don't talk about more taxes. Union county as a whole has 5 H/S's total and that's 3 too many

[Furlow]

Bucket- Look at that same chart for Lee County. School tax is almost same as County & municipal added together!

[Lord McBuckethead]

Exactly. Union County is a dang cheap place to live. I bet their per capita average earnings per household are close to the same.
I am not here to discuss Lee County or Tupelo. They have nice schools, as they should.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

It would probably have passed if they had removed the new lights for the ball fields-athletic improvements. Ball Field lights are something that could have been done via fundraising as not everyones kid plays athletics.Also the voters felt like it was not presented well and gave the impression that they were trying to ?sneak it through?.

[HoopsDawg]

How many schools does Union county have?

East union, West Union, New Albany, Myrtle, Ingomar. Is that a lot for 25k people?

Man, that is absolutely ridiculous.

[Pancho]

several coaches , teachers and spouses of Union county schools are totally making fools of themselves on social media as they run down the voters.