MOUNTAIN VIEW — Rural Special and Timbo schools have decided to take matters into their own hands.
The pair of schools have been a part of the Mountain View School District since 2004 and have decided that it was time to be on their own again.
In 2003 when Mike Huckabee was governor of Arkansas, he proposed merging all school districts that did not have 1,350 or more students.
That created an uproar in rural schools across Arkansas. Valley Springs led the Save Our Schools campaign that united rural schools across the state.
Eventually, the number was reduced to school districts with 350 students or fewer. If below the 350 number, schools had to merge with another district or be shut down.
Rural Special and Timbo merged with Mountain View. The Ozark Mountain School District was created by merging Western Grove, St. Joe and Bruno-Pyatt. Deer and Mt. Judea combined to create one district and the Jasper School District added Kingston and Oark.
Act 919 is a new law that was introduced by Missy Irvin and passed both houses of the Arkansas Legislature. This bill gave communities the opportunity to take back their schools.
“It provides the opportunity for these communities and these schools just to self-govern, and to be on their own and to pour into their community,” Irvin said in an interview in mid-April.
Leading the charge for Timbo and Rural Special is a graduate from Timbo, Melissa Sutton.
“If you rip out the schools, then the communities die,” she said. “We already have a problem with that in Arkansas.
“I went to Timbo,” she continued. “My small school education never held me back. I graduated in a class of 13 kids. I went to college and now I am working on my master’s.”
Both communities are preparing to petition to form isolated school districts as part of the process that was built into Act 919.
Seceding from Mountain View is not a guarantee.
The two communities will have to garner enough signatures on a petition drive. After that drive is successful, there will be a vote on the issue.
If both of these items are successful after a vote, then the districts will set elections to select a board and to set millage to generate revenue for the school districts.
Currently, state and county officials are looking at redrawing former school district maps. Those officials are determining the old school district boundaries before 2004.
One of the reasons that prompted this move by Timbo and Rural Special was the news that Mountain View had plans to close Timbo.
If the two schools are successful in their move, there will be financial effects for the Mountain View district. Arkansas gives each school district more than $7,000 for each student. There are approximately 350 students between the two school districts.
That would eliminate more than $2.5M from Mountain View’s resources. The loss in revenue could also mean a reduction in faculty and staff or serious belt-tightening by the district.
