Residents of Clymer, Sherman and Panama have made, in our view, the right decision by approving a merger study for the three rural school districts

More than 630 votes were cast during a public survey taken during the annual school budget vote and school board election recently, with 73% supporting a feasibility study. Approving the study can only be a positive – nothing can be lost by having more information available when making decisions about something as important as potentially merging school districts.

If there is one thing that should be concerning to the 457 voters who voted in favor of the feasibility study, it is this – turnout was pretty low in all three school districts last week. None of the schools were proposing controversial tax increases. None were proposing unpopular layoffs of teachers or staff. There was nothing controversial to bring people to the polls.

Clymer had the most voters – 270 in total, followed by 185 from Sherman and 159 from Panama. From each separate district the results came in with 221 yes and 49 no votes from Clymer, 144 yes votes and 41 nos from Sherman, and 102 yes votes and 57 no votes and 25 undecideds from Panama, for a total of 467 yes votes and 147 no votes between the three, along with 25 undecided votes.

Compare that to the vote totals in 2017, when more than 800 voters in Clymer turned out to defeat a proposed merger with Panama. Turnout was more than 300 voters in Panama, which narrowly approved the merger.

It’s great that 73% of those who voted a couple of weeks ago see what many of us see – a merged district offers more opportunity for students in three school districts. But we are not so naive that we can’t see that approval of a feasibility study came in a low turnout election. As this process potentially takes a next step, the votes certainly won’t be low turnout moving forward.

All area residents need to seriously consider this merger option. Things are tight and the region’s population is not going to increase to bring in more revenue. It’s time to right-size the region. If your household had one less income tomorrow, what would one do? Probably lessen expenses. School districts have less revenue, it’s time to lower expenses through consolidation, which in turn will create more educational opportunities.