DUGGER, Ind. (AP) - Residents of a small southwestern Indiana town are hoping to keep the local high school and elementary school open as charter schools start opening this fall.
The school district that includes the town of Dugger is closing the schools this spring in a cost-cutting move, but about 200 people turned out in a show of support during a state charter school board hearing Tuesday night in the town’s community center.
Tom Peeler, superintendent of the newly formed Dugger-Union Community School Corp., said enrollment in the first year for the K-12 charter school next fall is projected at 260 students. Intent-to-enroll forms have been submitted so far for about 140 students, he told the Tribune-Star.
Peeler said it’s important to the 900-person town that the schools remain open.
“This is a powerful community. It’s a vibrant community, and it deserves an opportunity to continue, and that’s what the school will do,” he said.
The Northeast Sullivan School Board voted 3-2 in November to close its two schools in Dugger: Dugger Elementary and Union Junior-Senior High School, which has 172 students. The district’s four other schools will remain open, including North Central Junior-Senior High School, which is near Farmersburg and has about 500 students.
The rural district has lost about 150 students in the past five years, leading to a $1.8 million, or about 16 percent, decline in annual funding, according to district officials.
More than three dozen people spoke in favor of the charter school plan as the community center was decorated in Union High School’s black and gold colors, along with a table of Union memorabilia and Union-Dugger shirts lining the walls.
Larry DeMoss, a member of the Indiana Charter School Board, told the Greene County Daily World that the show of support in the town about 30 miles south of Terre Haute was impressive.
“I’ve been to eight or ten of these meetings. I’ve never had one that was as full of passion and so unanimous in support,” he said. “There’s no question here.”
The board is expected to vote May 1 on whether to approve the proposed Dugger charter school, said Sarah Sullivan, manager for the charter school board.
Northeast Sullivan officials have said the district will follow state law that requires vacant school buildings be offered to charter school groups for $1 annual leases.
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