By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A new effort is underway to get community input into the future of St. Joseph public schools.
St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce President Patt Lilly says discussions have been underway for months about the direction of the school district, discussions that began among members of the Chamber board after the overwhelming defeat of the school bond issue in April.
“The truth is that the success of the school district is the number one issue with the business community in St. Joseph,” Lilly tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline.
The Chamber and Mosaic Life Care will pay for a consultant to begin asking community members what they want from their school district.
St. Joseph School District voters in April soundly defeated a $107 million dollar school bond issue. Three incumbents also on the ballot also lost their seats on the school board.
Lilly says the bond issue campaign got off on the wrong foot.
“If you start the discussion with, okay, we have to close a high school. Well, that immediately sets off a polarizing discussion, but more importantly, why?”
The bond issue would have paid to convert the former American Family Insurance regional headquarters into a into a second high school to go along with a refurbished Central High School.
Under the proposal, Benton High School and Lafayette High School would have been turned into middle schools as the district ended the three-high school model in favor of a new two-high school model.
More than 64% if the voters cast ballots against the plan.
Lilly says the consultants plan to work with a large committee to speak with St. Joseph residents about what they want in a school district. He expects the process to take at least a year, perhaps a year-and-a-half. He says the school board will ultimately make the decision, based on the input provided.
Lilly says the devastating defeat at the polls in April sent a very difficult message to the St. Joseph School Board.
“The trust with the school district really has been broken,” Lilly says. “I think, in some ways, unfairly. But that’s a topic for another day. That’s just the reality. There’s not a lot of trust with the school district or the board.”
Lilly says though the Chamber and Mosaic are footing the bill, they will not be driving the conversation. Lilly says the consultants will take their time, talk to city residents, and begin forming a plan to present to the St. Joseph School Board.