Montgomery School Board Changes Mind, Votes No To Sale of Middle School
It appears the Montgomery Public School Board has had a change of heart. After much public outcry and a recently released feasibility study, board members in a specially called meeting not to sell Georgia Washington Middle School to the town of Pike Road.
The school board approved the sale earlier this month but there was a clause in the contract giving the board 30 days to back out of the agreement. Friday, the board voted 5-2 against the sale of the school.
It was a packed house, as the board was presented with the study showing how the sale of Georgia Washington Middle School would impact other public schools in Montgomery.
One area of concern for board members: rezoning. According to the report, selling the middle school would have meant a shift for all MPS middle school zones. Overcrowding was also an issue with the board.
President Robert Porterfield and Mary Briers were among the 5 board members who voted against the sale.
“We look at our teaching staff having to move them around from place to place and floating, these kinds of things certainly are negative impacts and there certainly wasn’t anything in this that would be positive”said Porterfield.
“Why should we disenfranchise our own students to accommodate pike road? And I felt from the beginning it was all about selling the school to the pike road system it was going to impact our students in a negative way.” added Mary Briers.
Vice President Lesa Keith, is one of the 2 board members who voted in favor of the sale, and wishes more options had been presented before making a final vote.
Keith said “Why come in here and make a decision where we’re throwing away 11.25 million dollars that could go to text books that could go to qualified teachers and you’re going to see where the rubber hits the road because seriously now we’re going to be in debt”.
Without the sale of the school, the board is now faced with about a $5 million deficit in the 2018 budget, with the sale, the budget would have had have a one-time $5 million surplus for 2018…but the board would then face the same potential deficit in 2019. That’s according to Jason Taylor, chief school financial officer for the MPS intervention.
If the board had voted to go through with the sale, Pike Road would have paid about 11.25 million dollars to MPS over the next nine years for the school.
