FORTVILLE — Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation needs a plan to guide it through its future growth, and it can’t do it alone.
The district is having a community meeting on Aug. 27, followed by another session in January, to hear from parents, business representatives, community leaders and residents. Those Mt. Vernon Community Champions, as the initiative is called, will be encouraged to provide thoughts, opinions, preferences and ideas on how the school system should change as northwestern Hancock County’s population swells.
A demographic study Mt. Vernon commissioned at the beginning of the year predicts that the district will grow by about 2,000 resident students in the next 10 years.
Jack Parker, Mt. Vernon superintendent, said the corporation is starting off the 2019-2020 academic year with about 4,275 students, an increase of about 150 from last year.
“We’re experiencing significant growth, and that’s a great problem to have,” Parker said.
The corporation has a preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school in Fortville along with elementary schools in McCordsville and Mt. Comfort.
Attendees of the first community champions meeting later this month will receive an overview of the corporation, Parker said. That will include information on what the district does and how it does it along with the facts and data used to make decisions. Discussions on enrollment growth, finances, building capacities, class sizes, how the corporation communicates and how students use technology will also be part of the meeting.
Parker said Mt. Vernon wants attendees to share how they feel the corporation is performing in those areas along with their preferences for grade-level configurations and what the school system’s overall future growth should look like.
“Those are the people we serve,” Parker said. “We want to do what’s best for the community and we need folks to be informed, but we also need to be informed of what the preferences are of the community. The community’s the one that will live these changes forever, and we just want to make sure we do it right, we do it the best we can do, focusing on all factors.”
A group of about 50 from that first meeting will serve as advisers at regular sessions during the months that follow, Parker continued. Those advisers will help develop recommendations based on community preferences, financial feasibility and what’s best for students. The corporation will report the advising group’s progress to attendees of the initial meeting via email, Parker said.
The advisers will help the corporation develop a draft plan, which will include points triggering certain actions, Parker said, like what to do when certain grade levels reach certain thresholds. Mt. Vernon will present that draft plan at the second public community champions meeting in January 2020 for further public feedback. The goal is to take a recommendation to the school board in March 2020 for a plan guiding the corporation through the next decade and beyond, Parker said.
Parker emphasized the plan will be flexible. While it may dictate some kind of brick-and-mortar work during a certain year, it doesn’t mean that work will commence if circumstances determine it’s not yet necessary.
“We’re not going to do things before we really need to,” he said.
Cindy Cobb, a Mt. Vernon parent, said she’s looking forward to being part of the initiative. As the mother of second- and fifth-graders at Mt. Comfort Elementary School, her children will grow up through the changes coming to their school system.
“Just driving around here, you can see the growth happening right before your eyes,” Cobb said. “I would love to see what the plan’s going to look like so we can prepare ourselves and we can prepare our kids.”
She said class size is a significant issue for her, adding she doesn’t want them grow too large.
“It’s important for them to feel like they have that connection with their teacher and that there’s not so many people around them that they’re just a number,” she said.
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WHAT: Mt. Vernon Community Champions
WHEN: 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 27 and Jan. 21
WHERE: Auditorium at Mt. Vernon High School, 8112 N. County Road 200W, Fortville
SIGN UP: mvcsc.k12.in.us
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