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Oklahoma Senate
Effort to End Forced School Consolidation Gets New Life
Senator Jay Paul Gumm
Vowing to continue his effort to protect rural schools and communities, the author of a bill to permanently end forced school consolidation breathed new life into the measure last Wednesday.
Senator Jay Paul Gumm, D-Durant, successfully amended a House joint resolution to include his proposed constitutional amendment to end forced school consolidation. The proposal would allow voters to decide the issue instead of politicians or bureaucrats.
Earlier this session, the Oklahoma Senate on an overwhelming bipartisan vote passed Senate Joint Resolution 35. That measure contained a constitutional amendment to put the power to consolidate schools solely in the hands of parents and local school patrons.
House Republican leaders killed the proposal “in the dark of night” when it was not even given a hearing by the committee to which it was assigned.
Despite that setback, Gumm said the future of rural Oklahoma is far too important to not keep trying to save small schools and their communities. “Any effort to boost rural Oklahoma is woefully incomplete – in fact, only window dressing – without protecting rural schools,” said the Senate assistant majority leader.
“All the House Republicans’ bluster about ‘rural economic development’ is meaningless without empowering rural families to make this decision instead of leaving that power with the politicians and bureaucrats.”
Gumm, a former chamber of commerce executive who wrote one of the state’s most successful rural job creation programs in his hometown of Durant, said education is the key to any effort to bring jobs to rural Oklahoma. “Without rural education, rural economic development doesn’t exist,” he said.
The measure Gumm amended is destined for a conference committee for final negotiations. If approved by the House, voters would get to decide in November whether to permanently put the power to consolidate schools in the hands of parents and local school patrons.
Gumm said time and again, Republicans tell their constituents they will oppose rural school consolidation. However, it is a different story when they get to the Capitol. “This constitutional amendment is an historic opportunity for those who claim to oppose school consolidation to match their record with their rhetoric,” he said.
Gumm also questioned why Republican members of the House Rural Caucus, a bipartisan group with 60 members, did not demand a hearing on the issue when the proposal first arrived in the House after the bipartisan Senate vote.
“Are rural Republican legislators going to represent their constituents or bow down to their leadership?” Gumm asked. “Now, they have another chance to stand up to their leadership and stand up for their constituents.”
Gumm said if House Republicans fail to pass the constitutional amendment, it would solidify the growing perception that their real goal is to eventually close rural schools and kill the communities they serve.
“Either House Republicans trust Oklahoma families to make this decision or they do not, and this bill will answer that question,” Gumm concluded. “As for me, I will always place my trust in rural families and continue my fight to truly empower rural Oklahoma.”
