The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
By DAVID GRIMES, The Quill Correspondent
DALLAS CITY - If school district voters go to the polls in spring 2005 to vote on a merger, will they vote for a three-district or four-district proposal?
According to results of a mailed survey and door-to-door canvassing, voters in the Dallas School District indicated an overwhelming desire for a four-way convergence proposal involving themselves, LaHarpe, Nauvoo-Colusa and Carthage.
Those schools have been talking about a merger proposal since last summer. Dallas City school officials sent out 1,600 surveys last month, but only 105 were returned.
The district's advisory council then went door to door last weekend in Dallas City, Pontoosuc, Durham and Lomax to collect more ideas from the community about the district's future plans.
Of the 85 people polled individually, board member Shawn Hopper said most preferred the 4-district alignment (59 respondents), with a 3-way arrangement coming in as the 2nd preference (26 respondents) even if it meant a building project would be needed.
Nauvoo-Colusa is discussing a merger with the Hamilton and Warsaw districts, and some concern was expressed about whether a three-way merger would work if Nauvoo-Colusa decided to drop from the 4-way alignment and pursue other plans with the two districts to their south.
Hopper said a LaHarpe School Board member predicted to him that if a 4-way ballot question is tied to a building project question, a convergence measure would fail.
Dallas board president Bryan Hubbard wondered if a LaHarpe, Dallas City and Southern merger proposal might be feasible if a 4-way district plan failed. Dallas City currently sends its high school students to Nauvoo-Colusa, and should Nauvoo-Colusa join Warsaw and Hamilton, Dallas students conceivably would have a farther distance to travel to attend high school.
Board members from the four-district group are scheduled to meet March 17 at the Hancock County Courthouse to present their individual preferences in four areas, Dallas Superintendent Charles Langley said. Those include school location, board composition, a referendum date and a tax rate for the proposed new district.
Following the meeting, the boards will convene separately to determine if they are willing to put a proposal on the ballot and whether they will support the proposal.
"After the 17th, we're going to need to know what we want to do so we can begin to sell it (to the community)," Hubbard said.
But the sale may turn out to be easier than the pitch, based upon what board member Brent Sparrow was told by a friend at church last week.
"When it comes time to vote," Sparrow said he was told, "we want to know what you (school board members) think."