Welcome Corey McCullock!

I am honored that Corey McCullock accepted my invitation to write for Kat Country Hub. I have enjoyed his writings in the past and am pleased to welcome him aboard! He is a 2013 graduate of Lyons-Decatur Northeast. This week, he is sharing his thoughts on the schools merging. His column is below.

Corey McCullock

The School Merger In the county lately, one hot topic is the school merger, which like most other topics has many different views. This particular view is from a former student who plans to move back to the area after college to start and raise a family in Burt County. The main thing that I feel would be lost with the merger in Burt County is the relationship that the students have with each other and with the teachers. With a graduating class of 12, I knew all of my classmates very well, to the point that sometimes I would consider them brother and sister, which we surely fought like in class occasionally. I feel this relationship would be lost if the county was to undergo the school merger. With classes in the area of 80 students, it becomes much harder for them to get to know each other compared to the class sizes that the schools have now. Along with not being able to know each other as well, the relationship between the student and the teacher would not be developed as well as it is now with the current class sizes. That was one of the most important things to me in high school, knowing my teachers in a way that could not be achieved in a larger school with bigger class sizes. Although the school merger would help all of the participating schools out financially, I would have to say that there is a chance I would not enroll my children into the merged school when the time came. It would have to be a decision made at the time of enrollment based on the number of students in the classes, along with other reasons, but I feel that is a very important factor. I listen to people I meet on campus talk about graduating in classes of 300, 400 or even up 550 students, and I think that it would be crazy to be one of 550 students. When I say I graduated in a class of 12, they all think it was a one room school house. I can honestly say I would not have it any other way, I loved going to school in Lyons and I hope that when I move back and I have children and they are ready to go to school, they can the small school experience that I did.