Several residents of Tippecanoe Township, outraged at the closure of Monterey Elementary, have started a petition for de-annexation from the Culver Community School Corporation to the Eastern Pulaski School Corporation. This petition, which has now collected over 600 signatures, will soon be presented to the Culver School Board in the hopes that they will agree to the request.
Monterey Town Board President Jim Fleury says the petition was started because many residents were outraged at the closure of the elementary school, claiming that they were promised that the town of Monterey would always have a local school.
“We were told several years ago we’d always have a school in Monterey. Ten years ago, they invested over a million dollars remodeling the school and after ten years they closed it,” said Fleury.
But it isn’t just a matter of presenting the petition and then becoming de-annexed, as the Culver School Board will have to vote on the issue and decide whether or not to approve it– and because state funding is based on the number of pupils at a school, and de-annexing Tippecanoe Township would undoubtedly cause them to lose students, hopes are not very high for immediate approval of this request.
The closure of Monterey Elementary was caused by a reduction in state funding for schools, causing a struggle to stay afloat for many schools, including Culver Community. Money was tight and several options were discussed in order to make the cuts they needed to make—the option chosen involved the closure of Monterey Elementary, but saved the corporation from cutting jobs.
