Valuing rural schools and their communities

Bob Douchette writes of the value of rural schools--and rural communities--in the Tulsa World.  His essay also addresses how these institutions are on the ballot on Nov. 8.  

If you grew up in a small town, you know how integrated a school and its community can be.

Schools are a gathering place for the community. I remember as much for the sole year I lived in the little burg of Marengo, Illinois, a farm and manufacturing town just south of the Wisconsin border.

Douchette then turns to the illustration of Burbank, a town in Osage County, Oklahoma, that was struggling back in 2001 to keep its doors open, due to population loss. 

Burbank’s 40 or so students would be spread out to nearby schools in Shidler, Fairfax and Ponca City.

As I talked with people there, everyone understood that consolidation was inevitable. The best path forward was a planned death for the school, one last year of classes before Burbank School closed for good.

Underneath that acceptance were fears that with the school’s closure, there wouldn’t be much left to keep the town alive. It had been a boomtown during the great Osage County oil rush of the 1920s, with thousands of residents, thriving businesses and even a couple of movie theaters.

But the Burbank oil field played itself out, and all the money and jobs that came during those gusher days moved on.

By late 2001, Burbank residents worried that all they had left to keep the town together was its post office.

Burbank’s fate is what many small communities fear when the words “school consolidation” arise. For decades now, there has been a tug-of-war between fiscal hawks who decry the high number of Oklahoma public schools — and the administrative overhead that comes with them — and rural Oklahomans who wonder what will become of them if they lose a key anchor of their towns.

The rural pushback is strong, and one of the main reasons why consolidation has been rare. Nobody wants to lose their town, and closing a school is seen by many as a potential death knell for rural communities.

Douchette then goes on to explain how school vouchers are a threat to rural schools, a topic also addressed in Jon Tester's book, Grounded.   

School consolidation hasn’t gone anywhere in Oklahoma for this basic fact: The people in rural Oklahoma see their communities and way of life as something worth protecting. Not everyone wants to live in metro suburbs or larger cities. For many, they’d rather stay where they and their families have put down roots for generations.

I think that’s one of the reasons why there is concern in towns outside of Oklahoma’s metro areas. Folks have seen the voucher legislation proposed and shot down, but there are promises to bring the idea back next year.

And there are political candidates who are, in part, staking their campaigns on it. It makes people wonder how many battles they’ll have to fight to keep their schools intact.

The political reality they face is that you can win these battles repeatedly, but the win-loss record won’t matter if you lose just once.

Don't miss the entire column.  The same issues are playing out in other states, too, including Missouri, where Jess Piper's campaign for the Missouri legislature has repeatedly drawn attention to the peril facing rural schools in the Show-Me State.