Times Daily, AL
01-24-07
Supporters start school petition
By Jonathan Willis
Region Bureau
MOULTON -- As the debate over possible Lawrence County schools consolidation heats up, one
group has taken to the Internet for support.
Barclay Key, a 1994 Lawrence County High School graduate, has created an online petition in
favor of school realignment within the county.
The petition is asking Superintendent Dexter Rutherford and members of the school board to
consolidate the county's seven high schools into one or two schools.
School board members are looking into the possibility of realigning schools if a state bond issue
becomes available in the spring that would allow the system to build a new school.
Key, who is a lecturer in African-American history at Iowa State University, put the Web site
up Saturday and had already received close to 300 signatures as of Tuesday evening.
The petition asks if those signing live in the county, attended school there or taught in the system.
"Recent graduates have really been the driving
force behind the petition," Key wrote in an e-mail.
"They are the ones who helped spread the word through e-mail, myspace, and facebook, and
their voices should not be overlooked in the decision.
"If recent graduates are in favor of consolidation, what does that say about their experiences
outside of high school in the 'real world?' "
Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Vicki Morese said her organization
is strongly advocating the realignment of schools and is encouraging county residents to sign the
online petition.
"Our board of directors decided that the number one thing we can do in regards to growth and
economic development is to help improve our education system, specifically the realignment of
our schools," she said.
The chamber is even sponsoring a charter bus trip to Gadsden on Thursday so school
administrators and community members can see some of the things that school district faced
when it consolidated three high schools this year.
"Although Gadsden is much larger than we are and they are a city (district), they still had to
address some of the same concerns that we have here," Morese said. "Hopefully, this will allow
some principals to talk with other principals about the challenges they faced and how they dealt
with them."
The school board is hosting a community forum at 6 p.m. Feb. 5 at the A.W. Todd Coliseum in
Moulton to hear concerns from residents about consolidation.
Though the online petition in support of realignment has generated numerous signatures, other
petitions are being passed through the county in opposition of any such measures.
Because of a continuing decline in enrollment, the school system is looking into a few realignment
options, but the most likely scenarios would result in one or two high schools in the county.
Rutherford has said that realignment would not fix the county's money woes, but it would allow
the system to broaden its curriculum and add more elective courses.
Each realignment option would require the construction of a new facility. The one-school plan
would require a school large enough to house the county's 1,745 high school students and would
likely be built in Moulton.
A two-school plan would consist of East Lawrence High School and a new school in the western
part of the county that would house students attending Hatton, Hazlewood, Hubbard, Mount Hope
and Lawrence County.
Speake students would join the students already attending East Lawrence High School.
A third and less likely option would be a three-school system that would include East Lawrence, a
new school in the western part of the county and one in Moulton.
With each plan, kindergarten through eighth grade schools would remain in each community.
"Although this petition was not started by a chamber person, we are more than happy to promote
it and encourage people to go online and sign it," Morese said.
"We support maintaining community schools, but we realize that to offer the curriculum we need,
we have to step up the course offerings, and we can't do that with seven high schools."