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SUPERINTENDENT: JOINT MEETING A SUCCESS
Friday, January 14th, 2011 -- 3:03 pm
Posted by Riley Hebert-News Director
Interview with Granton Superintendent Arnie Snook after 3-way meeting between Neillsville, Granton and Loyal school boards Thursday.
Q: How did the meeting go?
A: I think the conversation went real well and that's exactly what it was, a conversation to open up some dialogue and to be out in the public, out in the open where we have some possibilities...we have to look at the future down the road.
Q: What do you think that future holds?
A: Boy, you'd have to be kind of a genie and guess, but with the declining enrollment and the way the state aid is coming down and the deficit the state's in, I think it's going to take a lot of work and collaborative effort between school districts to stay alive.
Q: With a school like Granton, where the high school enrollment is under 60 students... what types of problems does that present?
A: It's a real problem. When you get to high school, you spread out and you have all these electives and the largest fixed cost is teachers' salaries and benefits. We have classes where we have 3, 4, 5 (students) sitting in front of a high school teacher. It's just not cost feasible.
Q: Are any area school immune to these problems, or is this across the board?
A: Oh, this across the board. I don't think enrollments are going to go up at all. We're in rural America. Dairy farms are getting bigger, the manufacturing jobs aren't there anymore. Looking to the future, somebody's going to have to be real proactive or someone is going to lose out.
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