Edgar goes out with a bang

Just days before his retirement, Superintendent Gabe Edgar is scheduled to present a long-range plan to the St. Joseph Board of Education.

If approved, this plan would eventually leave the St. Joseph School District with just two high schools. Benton becomes a middle school, while Central and Lafayette remain the city’s two public high schools -- until voters decide otherwise.

In this respect, this isn’t a long-range plan. It’s a school consolidation plan. That’s how the public saw it in April during the campaign for a $157 million bond issue.

Voters rejected this bond issue, which would have resulted in a new high school south of U.S. Highway 36. This came as no surprise given the high school reunion mentality in St. Joseph. In addition, the district struggled to explain when or how a second high school would have been built for the North End.

But the district was clear in explaining its intent to downsize to two high schools with or without bond approval. Voters will have to understand that the district’s problems with facilities and stagnant enrollment didn’t magically go away April 9.

While the district has to act in some way, board members sometimes act as if the plan is driving its decisions and not the other way around. There are options. The district could:

• Build one public high school for the entire district. This one-school approach would help eliminate the kind of South Side-North End factionalism that holds St. Joseph back in so many ways.

• Have a bond issue on the construction of a North End high school. If the South Siders were short-sighted enough to reject a new school, maybe the North End would be more willing to accept something new. They probably deserve the chance.

• Or, keep the present course and invest in Central and Lafayette as your two high schools. The district’s financial management has made this possible through a “no tax increase” bond issue, although voters might be understandably leery of investing in more remodels if the long-term plan is to close another building in favor of new high school construction down the road.