READING — Over a week now after an email chain was publicized asking for guidance on a possible petition which could lead to the end of USD 251 North Lyon County, the woman at the heart of the controversy tells KVOE News she is still deciding whether to launch that effort.
Reta Jackson didn’t back away from the email that first went public during the USD 251 school board meeting May 21. In the email, which originally went out to a handful of people, Jackson said she believed the district is “broken beyond fixing.” And she pointed to the school board meeting as a case in point.
Board President Matt Horton and Superintendent Aron Dody have declined comment.
Both sides in the ongoing debate over new versus renovated school facilities the past three to four years have accused the other of bullying, manipulating facts or outright lying as the debate intensified. All three bond proposals approved by the board majority for new facilities were voted down.
Jackson says the email was meant for a close circle of friends as a sounding board for guidance on the possible petition. She says a lot of people who did not support any of the three recent bonds for new facilities or those on the eastern or northern fringes of the district feel they have been disrespected as the process has continued, in part by supporters of the bonds and in part by the Board of Education.
Jackson says she didn’t consider a petition to shut down the district until recently, and any thought of the petition being a retaliatory move after the recent closure of Reading School is unfounded.
If the petition is put on the ballot and voters decide to disband, Jackson isn’t sure how the State Board of Education will respond — whether it will totally carve up the current district or perhaps shrink it.
Should Jackson decide to launch the petition, she tells KVOE News she does not plan to recruit or convince people to close the district.
If the district dissolves, the Kansas State Department of Education says a state board would then assign new district boundaries. Residents within the old district boundaries would then pay school property taxes to their assigned district, which is not necessarily where their students decide to go.
