OT - Union County School District Bond Issue

[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.

[Lord McBuckethead]

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

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

[Lord McBuckethead]

nm

[Goldendawg]

You are totally misinformed, 90%+ of the spending was slated directly to classroom spaces and absolutely needed facility upgrades. They haven't passed or even asked for a bond issue in 40 years.
Yes they had some baseball/sports lighting, drop in the bucket and was only going to be considered if everything else bid out as expected.

Look, East Union has temporary trailers out back, and it is going to be worse next year. They are short 4 classrooms now, and will be 6 next year. They were building 10.
West Union is short on both restrooms and classrooms.
Myrtle has K-3 graders walking across a parking lot between class, library, and cafeteria.
Ingolmar has a direct need today for classrooms and extra curricular multipurpose gym space.

That was 15 million of the dollars. They had some paving projects in there, $1,000,000+. And what was left was lighting, which wasn't much.
The lighting was going to be the last thing bid, considering construction cost fluctuate and could have taken all 18.5 by itself.

Sad. Sounds like someone did a poor job informing/convincing the voters and maybe consolidation is also needed.

[Lord McBuckethead]

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.

https://tscmaps.com/millage/union-ms/

[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.

[Liverpooldawg]

Their current millage is 44.75 for the school district. New Albany is at 85.
If their average property in the county is assessed at 140k, and the millage increase is 5 points for the bond, that is $700 before homestead.

They seemed to be talking actual bill for the average home, which is usually assed well below actual value, not the millage. A $600/$300 increase on the total bill would be a massive increase here for the average property. We aren't that different than Union County.

[Cooterpoot]

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

So, it's still too many small schools.

[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?.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[BorneDawg]

My home county consolidated from 4 High Schools to 2 about 30 or so years ago and some people are still angry about it. The 2 still go through 8th grade and students can go to HS of their choice. Yes, "recruiting" for the best athletes goes on from the remaining two HS's.

but as for the health of the county I believe it has improved the schools...... I was in school during the consolidation.... The district i'm in now has 6 county schools in one of the poorest counties in the state!It needs to happen here ASAP!!!

[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.