Barbara Miller NLCS School Board

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12/16/2023

What is your vision for NLCS? 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Next year BNL turns 50. We went from 7 high schools to one. For those who don’t know, that’s why the BNL Star has 7 points. More recently we went from 3 middle schools to one. We had 9 elementary schools and now we have 5. We have an open OMS building. We have lost many students to population decline and many more to school closings.
Here are some ideas that I have heard mentioned
Reopen OMS. Students choose which middle school to attend
Build a new middle school/junior high. ( by BNL - at Parkview -at BMS -at ?)
Move middle school to OMS and repurpose BMS
Build a new elementary and consolidate 2 or more into one.
Have the goal of one high school, one new middle school/ junior high and one new consolidated elementary school
Open a K-12 charter school thru NLCS at Oolitic.
Maintain what we have now. BNL. BMS. 5 elementary
BMS and Parkview are the oldest buildings. Maintain? Replace?
What do we do with the empty OMS building?
Consolidate Needmore to Dollens?
Gateway Academy. Expand?
Adult education?
What haven’t I thought about?
What are your thoughts and awesome ideas?
What should our vision be as we think about the future of NLCS for our current and future students and for the community?
No rehashing the past please. We can’t go back even tho it would be awesome to go back to 7 small K-12 schools. This is where we are today so where do we go from here. Let’s look to our future and what is best for our kids, our grandkids, our great grandkids and beyond.
This is just my post as a community member and for no official purpose.
Thanks

05/12/2023

I’m so sorry. The vote was 5-2. Scott King and I voted to repopulate, restaff and keep OMS open. Adam Parsley made the motion with Tracy Bailey seconding to suspend operations with Wendy Miller, Kirsten Collier and Jeff Lambrecht all voting with them. My heart is broken. I feel for all the middle school students that this changes their middle school experience and school choice. I was hoping we could pull the vote off but it didn’t happen. Thanks for all the positive OMS comments.

05/10/2023

Oolitic Middle School

The previous board voted in March and July of 2022 to keep OMS open. Even with that vote in March, the previous Superintendent gutted OMS at the end of school in 2022 including teachers. The last year we had 3 middle schools, OMS had 56 transfer in requests from Shawswick and Bedford students.

We have to stop the bleed of students from NLCS to all of our neighbor school systems. Since 2019, NLCS has lost over 23% of our students. If OMS isn’t opened back up then we have a school building that is underutilized by 50%. At that point we have 2 options, we maintain a half empty building or we fill it. Another consolidation by moving Needmore into Oolitic. Some BMS teachers stated on the survey that they didn’t want to move but what about Needmore teachers? I bet they don’t want to move either. Now we have an empty school ready for another charter school which would take many of the just consolidated students and teachers. NLCS just lost another 350 students when that happens Our goal is to retain and increase our student population. In order to increase the student population, we need to offer 2 middle schools. What we are offering today isn’t working so do we keep pushing BMS or do we repopulate OMS that has never been voted on to close?
Many are in favor of one middle school with the goal to build a brand spanking new MS out by BNL. We don’t need to spend tax payer dollars on a new school when all of our existing schools have a long list of maintenance needs and all the elementary schools need new playgrounds. I vote to take care of our current buildings. IF a new MS is built then we vacate the BMS complex. I’ve heard there is a group in town who is interested in starting a K-12 charter school in the BMS building. So right in the middle of town we would have a charter school who could take up to another 600 students from NLCS.

Many teachers and parents have told me that 6th graders need to be in middle school. We need to move 6th graders out of the elementary schools. We add them back to middle school which would give us the numbers to support 2 middle schools. We could allow the parents to decide on BMS or OMS for their student with a bus to provide transportation between the 2 going both ways and not just one way. The previous superintendent sent 6th grade back to elementary so that Shawswick and Oolitic MS could be closed. We need to correct that decision.

We as a NLCS community and a school board need to look at the long term vision and plan backwards from that goal. Not make quick decisions today and then try to make them fit down the road. Five K-5 elementary schools (Dollens, Needmore, Shawswick, Lincoln and Parkview) feeding into 2 middle schools 6-8 (BMS and OMS) that feed into BNL. That keeps all current buildings utilized and allows room to increase our student population. We want to keep our students in NLCS and not vacate any more of our school buildings. We need to keep our teachers and staff also with a pay scale that is competitive to neighbor schools.

These are my thoughts and views. Please let us know what you think.

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Oolitic, IN

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