Warning: Voting against referendum will have countless negative consequences on Metamora
Metamora Grade School is at an inflection point with the upcoming tax referendum. I am a proud graduate of Metamora Grade School and Metamora High School, and now serve as a strategy consultant on education projects around the world. I warn that a decision against the tax referendum will have immeasurable negative consequences on the future of the town and school. How do I know? I have seen this scenario unravel repeatedly nationally and globally.
Like other small towns across America that have undergone dramatic transformations throughout the 21st century, there is an analogous relationship between Metamora and Metamora Grade School when compared with other rural communities and their struggling schools.
Rural schools still compose roughly a third of public K-12 schools and educate a fifth of Americans. However, due to pandemic levels of consolidation and closures, often caused by the financial difficulties similar to Metamora’s troubles, rural schools nationally struggle alongside their communities for survival. As a result of decreased funding, rural schools are increasingly absent of not only pupils, but also of opportunities comparable with those present in urban and suburban schools.
Schools, like Metamora Grade School, serve as enterprises for maintaining local identity and producing the next generation of community stakeholders. Therefore, rural communities, such as Metamora, use schools to respond to their local economic and social demands when larger state and federal agencies have historically ignored them.
From the archives:Grade school referendum in Metamora defeated by only 18 votes
If Metamora nullifies the tax referendum, residents will deplete the school of not only an important financial stream but also weaken the school’s power to serve as a vehicle for social change within the community and beyond.
As noted in previous articles on this discussion, if the tax referendum does not pass, it will result in the school having less monetary funds to operate effectively, resulting in such calamities as decreased teaching staff and extracurricular opportunities, both of which education research studies conclude result in future challenges for students as they progress on their educational paths.
Suppose you oppose the tax referendum because you do not have children in the school system. Research studies repeatedly determine if you suffocate a school to the point of being inefficient or closure, you kill the town.
My educational journey began at Metamora Grade School. The school is where I began to learn how to navigate and make sense of our nation and the world around us. The residents of Metamora are not foreign to me, but rather, they are my neighbors, family, friends, and loved ones. A vote against the tax referendum will save residents from a tax increase, but it will cost the town and its youth their futures.
More:What is Metamora known for? Here are 3 things that stand out
Allen Kenneth Schaidle is a strategy consultant with advanced degrees in education from Columbia University and the University of Oxford.