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October 6, 2018
Valley News
suncommunitynews.com
• EDITION •
Panelists tackle hard questions ahead of school merger vote Straw poll set for Oct. 9 By Kim Dedam STA FF W RITER
WESTPORT | Civility and honest introspection took center stage last Tuesday at a merger forum to discuss whether Elizabethtown-Lewis Central (ELCS) and Westport Central (WCS) schools should form a new, centralized school district. Panel discussion tackled hard questions and concerns with thoughtful discourse ahead of a non-binding poll that will pose the question in residents in three towns on Oct. 9. Start-up questions scrolled across a panel of five area residents, each with children who are or have attended Westport or ELCS. Opening questions evaluated how panelists view a school as a center of community and whether the status quo with ongoing cuts to staff and programs is tenable.
Panelists share a moment at the Depot Theatre in Westport on Tuesday, Sept. 25. Moderators were Sun Managing Editor Pete DeMola and Publisher Dan Alexander Sr. Volunteer panelists included two local business owners that live and grew up in Elizabethtown: Jeff Allott, with three children graduated from ELCS, as he had, and Ryan Hathaway, who attended ELCS and whose
BIKE THE BARNS » pg. 14
wife teaches in WCS where their young children are or will attend school. Heather Reynolds and Nicky SudduthWestover are both working mothers raising a family with children in school at WCS. Sudduth-Westover is the fourth generation of her family to attend Westport schools.
Photo by DJ Alexander
The panel included an experienced school administrator, Dr. Robert Bradley, whose daughter works for both school districts and whose son-in-law teaches at Westport. His grandchildren attend school in WCS. » Merger panel Cont. on pg. 8
Ahead of merger vote, ELCS, WCS students tour campuses Kids swap schools for the morning By Pete DeMola EDITOR
WESTPORT | They came, they saw, they ate bagels. Ahead of a straw vote next month that acts as the precursor for the merger of Elizabethtown-Lewis Central (ELCS) and Westport Central School (WCS), students from each district spent the morning kicking the tires at their potential new homes. ELCS middle-school students tumbled out of a bus on Thursday morning and were led to the WCS cafeteria, where they had a choice of an English muffins or bagel paired with cantaloupe and other breakfast items. Alexa Markowicz, 11, said she “felt normal.” But she was also excited and slightly nervous because it was only the second time she had been to WCS. “I went to see my friend who moved here,” Markowicz said. Julia Hooper, 11, said she was eager to visit the classrooms. Breakfast, she said, was better than ELCS.
Emily Hickey, 10, agreed: “It’s better than our school,” she said. For Hickey, the nine-mile trip east down Route 9 was no big deal because she’d been here before. “I’m normal,” Hickey said. “It gets me out of school.” Emma Olcott, 11, spent five years at WCS before transferring to ELCS as a fifth-grader. “I’m excited to see my friends from this school,” she said.
VOTE UPCOMING
If voters approve of the merger in a straw vote on Oct. 9, and a second on Dec. 4, the merger becomes effective July 1. Under the merger proposal’s suggested plan, K-6 students would remain in their respective districts. WCS would become the merged district’s middle school, and ELCS, the high school. The exchange day, said district officials, was designed to “explore the division of grade levels into different building across a potentially larger merged district and the associated transportation between the two locations.” Students in each district rode the bus to their home district as usual, but were transferred to a shuttle bus for the second run. » Merger tour Cont. on pg. 2
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