Russell County School Board members said they voted Tuesday night to close two small elementary schools because they felt it came down to a difficult choice between keeping the buildings open or giving teachers much-needed raises.
The school system’s teacher salaries are the lowest in this region and at or near the bottom across the state. Over two years, the system has lost 51 teachers to other school systems that pay more, according to Superintendent Kimberly Hooker. As a cost-savings move, she recommended the closings of Swords Creek and Copper Creek elementary schools after this school year.
School board member Jonathan Eaton said he hates the thought of closing schools, but the school system is a business that is losing its best employees because the pay is so low.
“When you run a business and you don’t pay your employees adequately, what do they do? They leave you for other companies, and that’s what’s happening to us,” Eaton said. “And we’re at a point now where if we don’t stop the bleeding, we’re going to bleed out.”
The vote to close Swords Creek was 6-1, while the vote to close Copper Creek was 5-2.
The meeting was held at the school board office in Lebanon, nearly two weeks after a heavily attended and emotional public hearing during which parents, teachers and former students of the two schools asked the school board to reject the closings.
The schools were described as caring and nurturing environments where students thrive. Several parents threatened to take their children out of Russell County schools and enroll them at a school in a neighboring county or a private school, or homeschool them, if the schools were closed.
The closings are needed due to declining enrollment and budget concerns, particularly the need to raise teacher salaries, Hooker said during last month’s public hearing.
Before board members voted Tuesday night, they heard from Brandon Miller, who teaches government at Honaker High School. He said he works several additional jobs to supplement his income, including driving a school bus and building retaining walls every weekend. But it’s not enough, he said.
Miller, who has two daughters in college, said that for the first time in his 23-year career, he is considering going to work for another school system because his family can’t make it on what he earns.
“I’m going to be honest with you — and I feel like I can speak for a lot of these teachers — I’m tired. I’m very, very exhausted. … I’m losing that torch that was burning inside of me. It’s a flickering flame right now,” Miller said.
Laura Vencill, a speech pathologist for the school system, said she loves her job but she and other employees just aren’t paid enough. She said the school division has had a speech therapist job open for at least three years, but there hasn’t been a single applicant because of the low pay.
Like Miller, Vencill said that for the first time in 25 years, she’s seriously considering going to work elsewhere so she can make more money.
She said she’s worked at all the schools and has seen and been affected by previous school closings.
“Let me tell you something, the schools closed and it’s OK. It was sad at the time, people were upset. … But it’s OK. And it will be by the time that we start school back in the fall. What’s not OK is to lose another 51 teachers,” she said.
Board Chairwoman Cynthia Compton said other schools have been closed in the past in Russell County, and she’s been told the money did not go toward teacher salaries. She said the school board will work with the county’s board of supervisors, which controls the purse strings in the county, “and we’re going to see this thing through.”
After the meeting, Miller said he knew that the board had a difficult decision, but he was happy with its choice and hopes the raises for teachers will be approved.
Sophie Chafin Vance, who is the parent of one child who was scheduled to attend Copper Creek Elementary for the next two years and another child who graduated from the school, spoke against the closings during the public hearing April 25. She said Tuesday night that she was disappointed that the board voted to close the schools, especially since it had paid for an efficiency study that did not call for closing Copper Creek.
Closing the schools is expected to save about $600,000. The school system is losing three or four employees for the next school year, and the teachers at the closing schools will fill vacancies so that no one loses their job, according to the superintendent.
County school officials are working to close a deficit of about $1.9 million in the division’s budget, which currently totals about $58.23 million for the 2024-25 school year. Some improvements will have to be put off to move forward with the salary increases, Hooker said, including the purchase of three new school buses and new football stadium lights at one school.
Currently, the Russell school division has 3,143 students, which is down by nearly 400 students over the last four years, according to Hooker. The county operates seven elementary or primary schools, a middle school and three high schools.
Both of the closing schools were built about 70 years ago. Copper Creek Elementary, in Castlewood, has about 144 students in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first grade. Its students will attend Castlewood Elementary this fall. Swords Creek, near Honaker, has 96 students in pre-kindergarten through seventh grade who will move to Honaker Elementary.