What a year it has been!! For months the emergence of consolidation has circled over and around our community. Though for those of you living here during the former consolidation conversation – it’s been decades or years rather than months. After the Linesville community meeting last week, I reflected on the dawning of consolidation in the Valley.

Harrisburg was the first to signal distress when they broadcasted the “no money for education alarm”. School Boards throughout the Commonwealth received the news, acknowledged the alarm, and agonized over how to signal their constituents. Our own proactive citizen, Dale Gillette, quickly formulated a North-South consolidation solution. Then Save the Lake Schools formulated their East-West option, and the old “Indian” rivalry was on once again.

An announcement was wisely made that the Conneaut School District would ask its citizenry for aid in analysing this grim situation with the formation of B.U.S.S. (Better Use of School Space) Committees. There were numerous signatures on the committee signup sheets. These were the people who heard the consolidation alarm in the district once again and exclaimed, “Wow, I thought we were safe after the last alarm because of the investment of millions of dollars in the existing school facilities.” With these investment dollars in mind, the B.U.S.S. Committees began meeting to investigate and analyse the facts.

Over the next few months, these citizens (basically our local heroes) poured hours and hours of time into scrutinizing B.U.S.S. It was interesting as gradually the consolidation awareness dawned on these committee members. They began to send out the warning to those of us who frankly didn’t want to hear the truth of the consolidation alarm. That truth was incredulously expressed with various versions of the following. “I can’t believe this but, if we don’t consolidate somewhere, we won’t have the money to operate our schools throughout the next decade and our children’s education could be in jeopardy.” Those of us who attended the periodic B.U.S.S. report nights heard the alarm and we didn’t like it. So, thinking we could stop this irrational inevitability we organized “Write In campaigns” for the election of new School Board members. Success was limited [Editor's note: Only 1 of 4 won election and that was for a position no one else was on the ballot for] and Brian Boyce was elected to help us out of the seeming inevitability of consolidation.

In the past few weeks the citizens from each attendance area were given the opportunity to meet with the School Board and the B.U.S.S. Committees in order to hear the consolidation alarm in community and ask questions. Those who had not had the time or taken the time to attend any previous report meetings heard the consolidation alarm and reacted. At two of the meetings, it appeared the facts had been consumed, digested, and the community reluctantly conceded. At the Conneaut Valley meeting, the alarm met with equalled alarm among the citizenry. Their reaction was unkind. (I’m being nice because I more than likely would have joined them if I had not heard the dawning of consolidation months ago.) However, the verbal protest was tolerated by those who had been hearing similar resistance for months (or years in some cases).

The end of 2011 has brought the announcement from Superintendent Sperry, the education administrator hired for his educational expertise, for a reconfiguration of the current buildings – a.k.a. Option 6B. But only after hearing the repeated protests from community members, studying the recommendations made by the B.U.S.S. committees, and acknowledging the commonwealth mandates and fund shortages. Still to come is a public hearing to provide justification for the reconfiguration and a vote by the Conneaut District School Board three months after.

A national news magazine recently named its Person of the Year for 2011. The person is an amalgamation of people known as “The Protester”. Valley residents, we can claim a share in this designation as we have spent the better part of 2011 protesting against consolidation. You have shown yourselves to be united in this effort. Let’s use 2012 to support our students’ education and prove ourselves to be a formidable force once again for harmony, family, and education for each student . . . with an appropriate determination to have no child left behind!