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A longstanding St. Joseph County debate over school district boundaries captured the stateâs attention last week after Republican lawmakers booed and shouted down Black legislatorsâ concerns about discrimination in a bill that would remove students from the racially diverse South Bend Community School Corp. and send them to the smaller, less diverse John Glenn School Corp.
House Bill 1367, which advanced to the state Senate last week, would provide a new mechanism for John Glenn to seek disannexation of the South Bend Community School Corp.âs Greene Township without the South Bend districtâs cooperation or approval.
If the bill passes, South Bend school officials say, their district could stand to lose millions in property tax money and have little recourse for the change.
SOUTH BEND â Despite pleas from parents, some school board members, and others to delay the move, the South Bend school board voted Monday to close Hay and Tarkington elementary schools.
After more than two and a half hours of informational presentations and questions, the board voted to shutter the schools at the end of this school year as a first step in Superintendent Todd Cummingsâ districtwide ârightsizing.â
Before the vote, Jeanette McCullough, an at-large board member, moved to table the measure, but the effort failed.
During the administrationâs discussion of the closure recommendations, board members questioned which schools the affected students will be sent to and debated what that will mean for class sizes.
SOUTH BEND â South Bend schools Superintendent Todd Cummings announced plans Monday evening to ârightsizeâ and âreorganizeâ the district by closing two school buildings at the end of this school year, creating an âInnovation Network Zoneâ that would give autonomy to two other schools, and potentially closing one high school in 2022-23.
The recommendation calls for closing Hay and Tarkington elementary schools and creating the âInnovation Zoneâ for Muessel Elementary School and Marquette Montessori Academy. It will be up for a final board vote on Feb. 22.
The second part of the plan, which involves students in sixth through 12th grades, will be studied and voted on by the school board by the end of 2021 and will take effect in the 2022-23 school year. The first option is to create two junior-senior high schools for sixth- through 12th-graders.