Fortunately, Iowa lawmakers have put on hold merging as many as two-thirds of the state's 362 school districts.
The reason for the merger, they say, would be to improve student achievement.
Fortunately, they're going to study the idea for at least another year.
It's probably best that they study the idea long enough to realize how bad it really is.
The notion is the brainchild of Sen. Matt McCoy of Des Moines who wants to merge districts with fewer than 750 students. He says it could save millions that could be better spent on teachers and students.
The Iowa State Education Association opposes the idea and so do we.
Forcing schools to merge into districts of up to 750 students would be a logistic nightmare in sparsely populated areas such as Emmet County. With students' school days stretched to the limit now between classes and activities, putting them on the bus for another hour a day would in no way benefit learning.
One need look no further than Armstrong to see how smaller schools excel. Superintendent Randy Collins is an educational innovator who was the first in our area to take advantage of additional state funding by sharing positions with the City of Armstrong and North Kossuth Community School District. Collins also had the vision and foresight to make A-R an origination site for the Iowa Communications Network last fall, something that will allow the district to share both secondary and post-secondary classes with other schools and even colleges.
The Armstrong-Ringsted industrial arts program makes students job-ready to go to the front of the line for positions at Art's-Way and GKN.
The Armstrong-Ringsted football team, of course, speaks for itself, taking the runner-up trophy two years running in the state football championship.
When one walks into the doors at A-R, the unique sense of community is immediate and overwhelming. The Armstrong-Ringsted Community School District is in fact one of the major selling points in recruiting employees to GKN or Art's-Way Manufacturing.
While the federal government has felt the need to legislate No Child Left Behind, no children are left behind at A-R. Everyone, from teachers to administrators to fellow students and support staff, stands behind each and every student to ensure success.
It is that sense of community that is A-R's strongest asset. Forcing it and other schools to consolidate would be a tremendous disservice to the teachers, students and community.
The same goes for other school districts in our area under the "magic" threshold of 750 students. If a district is struggling, it will initiate a discussion with a neighboring school district, gain a consensus from patrons of both school districts and consolidate just as Graettinger and Terril did recently. That's how the decision should be made, by mutual agreement from within, and not according to the arbitrary dictates of those unfortunate bureaucrats in Des Moines who have never had the privilege of attending a smaller school.
If McCoy thinks bigger is better, let him have bigger.
For rural areas, though, maintaining a unique sense of community is even more important.