Hard choices for School District

The voters spoke last month, turning down the Sisters School District's request for a $14.5 million bond to rehabilitate, improve, and maintain facilities. The failure of the bond forces the district to face some hard choices.

With no funds to maintain the plant, it's time to consider how to reconfigure and consolidate facilities.

It's time to start planning for closure of Sisters Elementary School and the district administration offices.

There are pressures beyond the strictly financial that point toward decommissioning the elementary school: Enrollment district-wide is showing signs of stabilizing, but the district's projections don't show an influx of younger students in the lower grades in the foreseeable future. The economy and housing availability in Sisters Country don't make it easy for young families with elementary school-age children to settle here.

The district should form a blue-ribbon commission, composed of a broad cross-section of the community, to create a detailed and actionable plan with multiple options for the district. The commission should consider all costs and benefits - social and educational as well as financial - in consolidating facilities.

Where would we move students? What are the challenges and benefits to the students in such a move? How much would it cost to prepare alternate facilities for them? Where do we move district staff?

What should happen to the properties? Sale? Conversion to another public use? What are the costs, requirements, and timeline for land-use changes? How would the proceeds from a land sale be allocated?

The Sisters community at large must have a role in determining what that property would ultimately look like. Perhaps a portion of the property could become a winter activities facility while a portion might provide for more affordable housing.

All of these questions must be explored in detail, with appropriate public input and a plan created that can be enacted when the school board determines it is necessary.

If circumstances change, perhaps the plan would not have to be enacted. But the district cannot bet on the hope of increased enrollment and trying again to pass a bond. It's time to make some major moves. The hour's getting late.

Jim Cornelius, News Editor