Ironwood board reaffirms support for consolidation

IRONWOOD — The topic of area districts consolidating once again came up at the Ironwood Area Public School’s Board of Education meeting Monday, with the board reaffirming its support for consolidating after hearing a report on a recent meeting with Bessemer officials.

Board President Steve Thomas said he and President Pro Tem Ed Rickard met with Bessemer Area Public School’s Board of Education members Beth Stieger and Sherri Graham, as well as Bessemer Superintendent Dave Radovich, Aug. 11.

According to Thomas, the meeting began with a brief discussion of consolidation, in which the Ironwood board members said they were in favor and the Bessemer officials spoke against the idea.

The discussion switched from consolidation to shared services between the districts. Thomas said he spoke against this.

“I kept telling them, ‘Our teachers are overloaded right now and that shared services just would not work for us at this particular point,” Thomas said. He also said he was concerned about the travel time between the schools eating into the schedule.

Bessemer’s representatives remained opposed to the idea of consolidation during the meeting, although Rickard said Radovich said Bessemer may reconsider its position if a millage to fund the expansion of A.D. Johnston fails.

Thomas said that a press release was drafted by Radovich after the meeting. However, Thomas said early drafts of the release misstated Ironwood’s position.

Thomas made clear Ironwood remains supportive of consolidation.

“If they issue the press release saying that we are both not interested (in consolidation), that would be completely incorrect,” Thomas said.

He said it was fair for Bessemer to say it continued to oppose consolidation, however, it was wrong to include Ironwood as having adopted that position.

Another meeting is planned for October to continue discussions.

While no formal action was taken Monday, Ironwood’s board verbally agreed that the district’s position was that consolidation is “the best way to improve education for all students on the Gogebic Range.”

“I think that’s why we formed a consolidation committee,” LeRoy Johnson said.

When reached for comment Tuesday, Radovich confirmed the meeting took place but disputed Thomas’ characterization of Ironwood’s position on shared services.

“No, they didn’t express that at all,” referring to Ironwood representatives expressing they didn’t see shared services as a working option. “They were rather excited. They asked me to set up a follow-up meeting in October to start looking at staff, personnel, programs and equipment that we can share. That’s what Steve and Ed came out of that meeting with.”

He said the two Bessemer board representatives had told him they drew the same conclusion from the meeting.

Radovich added Bessemer remained against consolidation at this time — with the district’s board having unanimously voted not to consolidate with Ironwood — but was always willing to review the issue in future years.

Radovich said the press release, which he plans to present to the Bessemer school board at its next meeting, was going to say that at this time there won’t be consolidation but the districts are going to move forward with “sharing and pairing.”