Otwell citizens form Friends of Otwell to stop Otwell Elementary School closing

It was an emotional issue that brought over 200 residents of Otwell and surrounding communities together at the Otwell Community Center Thursday evening.

The packed meeting at the Otwell Community Center Thursday night came after Pike County School Corporation board voted Monday night to close Otwell Elementary after the 2015-16 school year. According to the board, the decision was made to attempt to deal with budget issues and the possibility of lower funding from the state.

An operational tax referendum attached to the May primary that would have generated about $2.3 million in additional taxes annually was overwhelmingly voted down by residents. School officials at the time stated that drastic actions would likely be needed.

The move is estimated to save the school corporation about $700,000 in annual expenses.

The meeting Thursday night was organized by the Otwell Ruritan Club and the Otwell Community Club to bring citizens together to seek solutions to change the board’s decision and keep the school open.

President of the Ruritan Club, Gary Pride, called the meeting to order turned it over to current Otwell Elementary School principal, Mindy Hill-Keeker.

Hill-Keeker stated that she had attended Otwell Elementary as a child, and now her own children attend there. She graduated from Pike Central and went to college with the goal of returning to Otwell to be a part of the staff at the school.

She told the assembled residents, “We are all in a very dire situation. I encourage you guys to all pull together to see what we can do to ensure that all of the students continue to have the great education that they’ve always been given so far.”

She turned the podium over to Tina Weisman, former principal at Otwell and former Strategic Planner for the Indiana Student Achievement Institute.

Weisman explained that she had worked with schools on their school improvement plans. Otwell was one of the schools that she had worked with and the school always had very high achievement goal attainment.

She made the point that the smaller schools and school districts often are the ones that get left behind. “If we keep losing our little towns, Pike Central is going to hurt,” Weisman said.

About a dozen or so citizens asked questions about why the school was being closed if it was such a good school, Otwell Elementary received an A in the most recent ranking by the Indiana Department of Education. The two remaining elemenary schools in the county, Petersburg and Winslow, received C’s. Otwell was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2011 and was an Indiana Four Star School in 2014.

They were told that the move was being dictated by the financial condition of the school corporation but no one elaborated on why Otwell was chosen.

But, residents are not giving up in a fight to keep the school opened past the 2015-16 school year.

They formed a steering committee,  Friends of Otwell, last night made up of members of the Otwell Ruritan and Community Clubs along with the Parent Teacher Organization of the school.

Their goal is to bring a plan to the Pike County School board on ways to save the school.  A plan that they say the school board wouldn’t provide.

Thursday night’s meeting was packed with well over 200 in attendance at the Otwell Community Center, which ironically, was the former home of Otwell High School.

During the meeting, several citizens asked about converting the school to a charter school – something that’s been done in other school districts.

It was said that the option is worth looking into, but it takes several years to get a charter school up and running.

One attendee asked if the school corporation could re-district the county so that the elementary schools would have a better balance of student numbers and if it would have a positive effect on the budget. They were told that just moving students around wouldn’t change the amount of money they get per pupil from the school funding formula.

A parent of one of the students expressed concern over the distance that her student would have to travel to get to either Winslow or Petersburg Elementary.

Many of the questions and ideas were captured on paper and will be pursued during the first meeting of the Friends of Otwell Wednesday, June 17 at 7 p.m. at the Community Center, 2301 N. Spring Street.

The attendees were also urged to contact their state legislators to see what assistance they can provide.

A petition was circulated with well over 200 signatures opposing the school closing plan.

Citizens were also encouraged to get more involved in the community and hold leaders accountable for their use of taxpayer money and future uses of that money.

The next Pike County Schools board meeting is on July 13 at 7 p.m. at the Pike County School Corporation office, 907 Walnut Street, Petersburg.