If done correctly, next year’s merger of the Greenwood and Leflore County school districts should both save money for the taxpayers and provide a better education for the students.
Those are the main two reasons to justify merging the districts.
One side benefit, though, is that a consolidated district will probably field more competitive, more closely followed athletic teams.
This week, the Mississippi High School Activities Association released its new classifications for the school years beginning in the fall of 2019. Leflore County High School, due to its steady loss of students, will drop to the state’s smallest classification, 1A.
School officials are putting a brave face on the downgrade, saying that they expect Leflore County to have more success playing against smaller schools, especially in a sport such as football, where sheer numbers on a team can make a huge difference in the outcome.
Still, it’s a comedown in prestige and in the general quality of the competition when a school drops down in classification.
When the Greenwood and Leflore County districts merge in 2019, the new consolidated school board is going to have some big decisions to make. One of the biggest is how many high schools to operate.
At a minimum, the consolidated district should eliminate one of the three high schools. There’s also an argument to be made for having just one high school countywide, maybe not in 2019 but within the next few years.
From a sports perspective, think of the potential alignments.
If the consolidated district sticks with three schools, their respective classifications will be Greenwood 4A, Amanda Elzy 3A and Leflore County 1A.
If the three are reduced to two, there will probably be two 4A schools, assuming the student population is fairly evenly distributed between them.
If all three are combined into one countywide high school, it will fall in the 6A classification, the state’s highest. Such a school would be on par with Oxford and South Panola, two programs with storied athletic traditions.
If that were to happen, it would generate more excitement, more statewide attention and probably better facilities — all of which would be good for the fans and for the premier athletes hoping to attract the eye of college recruiters.
When people in this community think about the possibility of developing a sports power, maybe they will get past the emotional ties that leave them stuck supporting an alignment that, at least in part of the county, is in decline.
