WILSON — The fate of a school district hangs in the balance as advance voting continues toward Tuesday’s special election for patrons in the five counties of Central Plains Unified School District USD 112.
In Wilson, a large local gathering amid a sea of purple is expected at Saturday morning’s introduction of the Grand Marshal for the 63rd annual Czech Festival.
It’s a time when the community of Wilson swells from its population of 836 citizens to welcome visitors for the annual after harvest celebration each year on the last Friday and Saturday of July.
The Wilson Chamber of Commerce, along with the Wilson community, will be honoring the students, staff and faculty of Wilson schools. The celebration is tinged with bittersweet, as Wilson Jr./Senior High School was voted closed by its governing USD 112 Central Plains Board of Education, effective at the end of the 2022-23 school year. WHS graduated eight seniors in May.
This was after a group of Wilson school patrons, in response to the closure, filed a petition backed by a never-before-used portion of state statute, to invoke a vote among district patrons to disorganize the entire USD 112 school district. The petition was filed in Ellsworth County as the district’s county of record.
Advance voting progress
Friday morning, Ellsworth County Clerk Shelly Vopat reported current advance voting progress. So far, 136 in-person votes have been cast and 64 mail-in ballots received, representing approximately 16% of the USD 112 district’s voters registered in Ellsworth County.
Similarly, Barton County Clerk Bev Schmeidler reported 179 votes cast in the period’s seventh day, representing about 20% of the qualified electorate. The advance voting period closes Monday, with the in-person vote at designated polling places in each of the five counties beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
After the vote, Vopat noted, unofficial vote totals will be available at the Ellsworth County Clerk’s office. The Ellsworth County portion of the vote will be then canvassed to review all votes including absentee and provisional ballots, on Aug. 7.
The question
The ballot concerns whether or not to dissolve the district by patron vote. A “yes” vote dissolves the district; a “no” vote leaves the district as it is. Since the filing of the petition, a series of meetings were scheduled to discuss possible outcomes, with both proponents and opponents of the question garnering support through static displays, posters, mailers and discussions on social media.
The WHS Future Committee was formed at the end of October of 2022, with the purpose of continuing to seek opportunities for the 7-12 facility at Wilson. At that time, they retained an attorney to advise the committee to what legal direction to pursue.
Michael Kratky is a 1970 graduate of WHS and a member of the Future Committee. Over the past 11 months, he has advocated for the Wilson School, which has included four trips to Topeka to speak to legislators and to the State Board of Education. The Committee advocates voting “yes” to the district’s dissolution.
“We have sent out a mailer this week, we have a 'Vote Yes' Facebook page. We had a ‘Vote yes’ meeting Wednesday night in Wilson,” he said.
“I don’t know that everyone who attended that meeting was seeking answers, I think that everyone has pretty much made up their mind by now,” he said. “As far as the Wilson community, it’s pretty well ‘vote yes.’ As far as the outskirts, Beaver, Lorraine, Bushton, those communities, that’s where I feel we’re at.”
The decision to dissolve wasn’t the Committee’s first choice, he said. “It was probably third, maybe fourth,” he said. “It was also five months in the process. We’d been working for five months on either extension or transfer.
“A vote ‘yes’ for our district is a vote ‘yes’ for all small schools in Kansas,” Kratky said. “The vote to close our school was a vote of want, not need.
“I believe that this issue will be talked about in the next legislative session,” he said. “I think there needs to be a structured closing for schools.”
Honoring Wilson School is a bittersweet, but prudent, decision at the Czech Festival, he said. “I’ve told everybody that I’ve spoken to about the Czech Festival, to go to the Festival and enjoy, then come back and vote Tuesday and vote ‘yes.’”
Meanwhile, a group of USD 112 patrons in Claflin are advocating a “no” vote. Their Facebook page notes that the closure of all three remaining buildings in the district would eliminate 107 full-time jobs in Barton, Ellsworth, Russell and Rice counties. Economic impact to the Claflin community would be destructive, noted Claflin patron Braden Miller.
“If this ‘yes’ vote goes through, this effort definitely goes away,” Miller said. “We truly belief that a ‘yes’ vote will destroy everything we’ve been working for.” As an unintended consequence, disorganization (through a “yes” vote) would affect all organizations under district operation would be affected, which includes the Claflin Recreation Commission.
The “no” vote means that the district would remain formally organized, with current attendance centers remaining open as Wilson Elementary in Wilson, Central Plains Elementary in Holyrood and Central Plains Jr./Sr. High School in Claflin.
The group’s website provides information on the state statute governing dissolution procedure, the ballot question and documentation on enrollment trends, budget information and community meetings. Its most recent informational community meeting was July 27 in Odin.
