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Oldham-Ramona patrons discuss reorganization
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By CHUCK CLEMENT, Staff Reporter
| 07/28/2010 |
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The superintendent of the Oldham-Ramona School District told the district's patrons Tuesday night that landowners should decide soon on what the new boundaries of a divided school district should look like before a written plan is sent to Pierre. Superintendent John Bjorkman told about 65 persons attending a public-input meeting in the Oldham gym that if landowners want to revise the old boundaries of the Oldham and Ramona school districts, they should make their decisions known to him during the next several weeks.
Bjorkman said that the Oldham-Ramona School Board has the responsibility for submitting a reorganization plan to the state Secretary of Education in September. The plan would serve as part of the response to a petition submitted in April calling for a vote on whether to divide the school district.
A petition containing 155 signatures was submitted and validated during the first half of April. Doug Tonsager, an Oldham resident, had said the petition was intended to re-establish the old boundaries of the two former school districts.
With the validation of the petition, state law requires the current district to create a plan making two or more school districts. The school board would submit the plan to Education Secretary Thomas Oster for his approval and then hold an election on the reorganization among the voters in the Oldham-Ramona School District. According to Bjorkman, the vote would make an important decision for the current school district.
"It will take a simple majority to divide the school district," he said.
Bjorkman said the school board has until September to approve a reorganization plan under the original six-month deadline, but they could also ask for a 90-day extension, if needed.
Standing next to the school board seated at a table on the gym floor, Bjorkman asked for a straw poll among the attendees on the question of returning to the original boundaries of the two districts. About 26 of the 65 persons seated in the bleachers stood up to give their approval to returning to the old boundaries.
Bjorkman said that if the school board submits a plan with the old boundaries, he didn't know if the education secretary could approve the establishment of two school districts with fewer than 100 students each.
"I don't know if the secretary of education can approve a plan like that...If we send in that plan with the two school districts, what's going to happen?" Bjorkman said.
According to Bjorkman, the state could reject the proposal from the school board and the secretary could write his own proposal. State officials could even make a case for the complete dissolution of the district.
If the reorganization plan receives the education department's approval, the school board would then schedule an election for the district's voters to vote on reorganization.
Bjorkman said the district's landowners could make their own request for which school district they should belong to if their property was along the old boundary between the old Oldham and Ramona school districts. He said that property would need to adjoin other land in the selected school district. Bjorkman added that landowners with property next to another school district such as Howard's could request its attachment to that different district.
The Oldham-Ramona School Board will host a second public-input meeting on Aug. 3 in Ramona.
The Oldham-Ramona board members are expected to discuss the reorganization plan options during their next meeting on Aug. 9. Bjorkman invited all of the landowners and school district residents to call or write him, offering their proposals on reorganization.
"Based on what I've heard here tonight, we're going to go with the old boundaries," he said.
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