Mason consolidation plan gets OK

But parents who oppose combining three high schools vow to block proposalMarch 31, 1998

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online

POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials got state permission Monday to close the county's three high schools and build a new school north of Point Pleasant, but many of the 120 residents who attended a public hearing on the closings said they won't stand for it.
"Here we go again," said Hannan parent Shirley Gue, who has led an anti-consolidation group in the county for three years. "The people of Mason County have said it a hundred times, but for the record, I will say it again. We do not want one high school in Mason County."
Twenty-one parents from Gue's group, which calls itself "Mason County Kids First," filed a lawsuit against the county school board last week in Mason circuit court, seeking an injunction against the consolidated school plan. They allege that board members are violating the 1997 agreement that settled the county's last anti-consolidation lawsuit by not following certain procedures, such as updating bus schedules, before they proposed consolidation again.
Board members want to close Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools and build a $19 million, 1,400-student consolidated school about two miles north of Point Pleasant. Residents have repeatedly stalled the county's attempts to consolidate since the state School Building Authority granted $14.4 million for a consolidated high school three years ago.
"We basically heard from the SBA today that if we don't move ahead on this project, it's a dead duck," board member Mary Beth Carlisle said at Monday night's public hearing. "We can't let the people vote on it, and we can't use the money for anything we want. That's a fallacy."
Residents who spoke at the hearing said Mason County is too big for one high school, and they would like to see at least two high schools stay open. School officials since September have been planning a regional high school that would serve 750 students from Mason and Putnam counties.
Parsons and other county officials got permission from the state School Building Authority on Monday to move their planned consolidated high school from a plot the county owns near Point Pleasant High School to a bigger plot outside town, which would cost an estimated $650,000. The authority approved the site change on the condition that the school would serve all Mason County students, Parsons said.
That would seem to rule out a regional high school, but Parsons said it is still a possibility.
"We have reason to remain optimistic about that," he said.
Cindy Ball, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she would send her daughter Jennifer to private school in Huntington before she would let the school board bus her from Hannan to a consolidated high school at Point Pleasant.
"A lot of parents in Mason County work in Huntington," Ball said. "I do, and if my daughter got sick I would be 100 miles away from her. I couldn't pick her up."
The consolidated high school could be finished within three years, Parsons said. Board members will vote on closing the three high schools at their April 7 meeting.
As for the $4 million difference between the cost of the new school and the money Mason County has in hand, Parsons said he's not sure where that will come from.
"We need to look at a variety of sources on that," he said.
If Mason County doesn't start building a consolidated school by next March, the county will have to give up the money, reapply and compete against other counties for funds again, the Authority said Monday.
Putnam County schools Superintendent Sam Sentelle said officials there will continue planning the regional high school.