A small school with heart — but low achievement — gets the axe

An outside look of Silver Grove School in Silver Grove, Kentucky. (Photo by Adam Schrand)

Only a few years after her 20th birthday, Sara Remley earned custody of her sister’s two daughters. Though the girls would no longer live with their biological mother, Remley decided they would attend classes where their mother did — at Silver Grove School in Silver Grove, Kentucky.

With a population of 1,292 people, according to 2017 Census data, Silver Grove is a town primarily known as home to Continental Building Products, the largest drywall manufacturing facility in North America, and Silver Grove Schools, a K-12 school system operated within its own independent school district. Though the schools — one building with elementary, middle and high school rolled into one — have low state test scores and just 200 students, Remley, as a single mother with family roots in Silver Grove reaching as far back as her great-great-grandfather, said it offered her necessary aid during a difficult time.

“I needed it to help support me with raising these kids,” Remley said.

Born and raised in Pendleton County, located less than 30 miles south of Silver Grove, Remley graduated from Northern Kentucky University in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in social work. The degree led to employment as both a child abuse prevention educator at the Family Nurturing Center, located in Florence, and as a substitute instructor at Silver Grove Schools, where she started more than 10 years ago. Now a full-time instructional assistant at the school, Remley still works at the Family Nurturing Center, which she said provides her primary mode of income.

One of about 40 full-time employees at Silver Grove Schools, Remley also coaches volleyball and basketball. She chose to work there full time to remain close to her daughters and other children living in Silver Grove.

“I don’t work there for the money,” Remley said.

Money, however, is a deep concern in this small town. Nearly 22% of Silver Grove residents received an income below the poverty line in 2017, according to Census data. Over 80% of students at Silver Grove Schools qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a barometer of poverty, as well.

 A combination of poor test scores, dwindling school property taxes and low enrollment at Silver Grove Schools prompted the Silver Grove Board of Education to vote to close the Silver Grove School District and merge it with the Campbell County School District on Feb. 18. The merger is set to happen at the end of the current school year and effectively takes place July 1.

Some, like Remley, think it’s an awful idea.

Remley defends Silver Grove’s value, saying the decision to close Silver Grove Schools is based on a misconception regarding the school’s test scores. Due to the small sizes of most classes at the school, all scores earned by students in classes with less than 10 students are kept confidential due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, which Remley said prevents proficient scores within these groups from being included in the school’s average testing score data.

“When we release our scores, we release the class sizes that are 10 and above,” Remley said.

Remley defends that there are also other intrinsic values to how the school measures progress, which makes its approach unique. The school’s focus on more than state testing is a benefit that’s gone unnoticed amid the decision to merge, she said.

“We don’t sit there and test our kids to death,” Remley said. “We actually teach kids, build relationships.”

Despite this, the vote to merge the Silver Grove School District with Campbell County schools passed 4-1 by the Silver Grove school board, which features four new members elected to their positions in November 2018. The only board member to vote against the merger was Melanie Pelle, a native of Silver Grove who has served on the board for 24 years.

Pelle said she believes the decision to merge the schools was primarily motivated by the current Silver Grove Schools property tax structure. Pelle said to end the tax will amount to less than $2 saved a day per household.

“They gave it all away from $1.40 a day,” Pelle said of the merger decision — one that she said “keeps me up at night.”

Like Remley, Pelle believes Silver Grove Schools provides a unique opportunity in offering students smaller class sizes and a heightened sense of community. Despite an attempt to compromise with the board members by asking to negotiate with Campbell County to ensure Silver Grove Schools could remain a K-8 school district, she said the board wasn’t interested in negotiating.

Pelle could resign in frustration but said she wants to oversee the transition. Because of a Kentucky Employees Retirement System statute, Pelle may not be removed from the board by any decision but her own.

Board member Kathryn Dee, who supported the merger and opposed Pelle’s request for negotiation, declined to comment. She canceled an interview per an email stating the board is no longer open to interviews sent by board member Jennifer Wade, who also supported the merger.

Campbell County Superintendent David Rust said in an email the merger was initiated primarily by Silver Grove board members “who were overwhelmingly elected on a single-issue platform to close the school district.”

“From what I heard and from calls our district has received for years, parents and stakeholders complained about having the highest school tax rate in the state with some of the lowest test scores,” Rust said in the email.

Though Rust said the merger’s effect on Campbell County education funding is yet to be determined, he said it’s estimated the merger will lead to a $400,000 increase. He said the increase will go toward hiring a few more teachers, transportation for students living in Silver Grove, a debt service on Silver Grove property and maintenance and upkeep of the property.

Rust acknowledged some families were vocal about wishing to avoid the merger. However, he said he thinks this is a minority opinion, as various others contacted him privately stating they were in favor of the merger.

“The pushback came predominantly from families with generational ties to Silver Grove.  I believe the pushback was from a minority of families with students in Silver Grove schools,” Rust said. “There were many more, in favor of the merger, who sent emails and responded privately.”

He said he thinks those who oppose the merger feel as they do due to a “fear of the unknown.” He said this might be because Campbell County schools are larger in size and enrollment.

Rust said he believes the increase in opportunity is immeasurable for those former Silver Grove students who will now attend Campbell. He noted that Silver Grove only graduated four students last year, making it impossible for the school to properly host a high school dance.

“I could write a dissertation on this,” Rust said of the benefits to merging Silver Grove Schools with those in Campbell County. “Our academic offerings are very diverse, with lots of AP courses, vocational/tech ed courses, dual credit and cover lots of options for kids, including AG classes and engineering. Our extracurricular offerings, clubs, athletics are vast and successful. We also operate an entire youth athletics program which will provide much more access and opportunity to SG students. Our arts program is extensive and successful as well. There is just no comparison.”

Kentucky boasts a 90.8% high school graduation rate compared to an 84% national graduation rate, according to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics. However, among Kentucky high schools, according to data from the Kentucky Department of Education, Silver Grove was one of only four to be considered both CSI I, which means the school ranks in the bottom 5% of Title I or non-Title I schools (elementary, middle or high school) in terms of academic achievement, and CSI II, which means the school possesses less than an 80% graduation rate for Title I or non-Title I schools.

This means Silver Grove performed below not only the state but also the national average. Of a total of six high schools statewide deemed CSI, Silver Grove is the only school located outside of Jefferson County, the state’s largest district and one that contains the largest number of failing schools.

Remley said she believes the decision to merge Silver Grove Schools was one made without Silver Grove children’s best interest in mind.

“It’s loss that’s being inflicted on them,” Remley said. “This is an inflicted, purposeful loss that you’re putting on these kids.”

Remley added her daughters struggled with the board’s decision. Her oldest daughter, who experiences difficulty with mental illness, needed to be hospitalized for a number of weeks following hearing the school closure news.

She said her youngest daughter cried often shortly after learning of the decision.

“It’s just hard for them to grasp what our life’s gonna be like,” Remley said. “Our life as we know it is over.”

Remley said she believes the school’s small size is one of its greatest strengths, as it allows educators to offer personal attention to children who may not have enough of that in their lives. She also thinks the school’s single-building design is a benefit, ensuring that all students mature and learn in an environment they know and are comfortable with.

“Silver Grove — it’s all one building,” Remley said in reference to a role often-changing environments play in affecting student learning. “They won’t ever have to face those barriers.”

The closure of the school will require transportation adjustments for students who would need to be bused to new schools in Campbell County. The busing arrangement is a crucial part of the merger details.

 Currently, many Silver Grove students are able to walk to school. Remley said busing could be tough not only for scheduling but because she believes many roads near Silver Grove are not fit for bus travel.

With this in mind, it’s likely students will need to meet at a set location potentially farther away from their homes than the location of Silver Grove Schools itself. Silver Grove and Alexandria, the city in which the Campbell County school system resides, are five miles apart.

“That’s not what we value,” Remley said of a potential need for students to wait on a bus to take them to school. “We value our kids being able to walk to school and get in a warm building as quickly as possible.”

As her oldest daughter will be a freshman in high school next year and her youngest only a fifth-grader, Remley said she would need to coordinate separate drop-off and pick-up times for them. The Campbell County school system does not house its elementary, middle and high school in the same building like Silver Grove.

Along with her daughters’ need for a small-classroom setting, Remley said she refuses to send them to Campbell County, which she said is a reality for various Silver Grove parents.

“These kids really, really need that small setting,” Remley said. “I will be selling my house, and I will be moving to another small district, and I’m not alone with that.”

Sarah Eversole, a mother of a daughter currently in seventh grade at Silver Grove Schools, said she and some other parents and teachers of Silver Grove students maintain a private Facebook group where the merger and other issues within the community are discussed. She said she and a few other parents are currently planning where they will send their kids to school after Silver Grove closes. She said anywhere but Campbell County.

“She will be not be going Campbell County … We will make that happen,” Eversole said of her and other parents’ desire to ensure their kids aren’t separated and sent to the much larger Campbell County schools. “We just don’t want them split up.”

Eversole, originally born in Cincinnati, moved to Silver Grove after receiving custody of her daughter, her biological niece, in October 2009 when the girl was only three years old. She said she actually considered sending her daughter to a Campbell County school when she was in second grade but was turned away by the school due to the belief her child would lower test scores.

For that, she said she’s surprised the Campbell County district was open to the merger. She said she suspects money is a primary motivator.

“I’m wondering who’s going to benefit from all this,” Eversole said. “I believe it’s about money.”

A stay-at-home mother, Eversole said she worries her daughter won’t receive the same support Silver Grove provides at any other school. Though her daughter came from a difficult family situation, Eversole said the Silver Grove community has always been understanding and welcoming. She said she believes whatever money might be saved by closing the school doesn’t validate the loss inflicted on so many Silver Grove children.

“They’re breaking it up, and the kids are scared,” Eversole said. “It just doesn’t seem that the money they’ll be saving is worth tearing the kids apart.”

Eversole said she proposed at an open board meeting the possibility of Silver Grove Schools funding itself as opposed to receiving funding from taxes. She said this was brushed aside, adding that she believes the board, aside from Pelle, appeared less than concerned with those affected most during those meetings.

“They don’t know our kids, they don’t know their stories,” Eversole said of the board.

Due to the larger size of Campbell County schools, Eversole said she believes her daughter would be treated less as an individual and more like just another face in a classroom if she were to attend school there. She included that she would struggle with the lack of involvement she would have regarding her daughter’s actions and whereabouts if she attended school in a district the size of Campbell County.

“In that big a district, I feel like I would lose some control over what’s going on with her,” Eversole said. “Being at Silver Grove, we all knew everything … Somebody knows where you’re kid is.”

Due to the stress of knowing her school will soon close, Eversole said her daughter has begun experiencing anxiety attacks for the first time in her life. Aside from playing basketball alongside her friends at Silver Grove, Eversole said not much matters to her daughter more than her school.

“She loves, loves, loves her school,” Eversole said.

With Silver Grove set to close soon, Eversole said she worries the school’s building will be abandoned, leading to a potential for increased criminal activity, as well. She said that risk is enough to make her consider moving from Silver Grove altogether.

She said she can’t believe she feels that way.

“I never thought that this would happen,” Eversole said.

Along with the uprooting Silver Grove students would face, Remley noted many of the school’s teachers will be left without a job once the merger goes through, though Campbell County did agree to interview Silver Grove teachers for vacant positions when the time comes. She said many teachers currently at the school are near retirement or in the initial stages of starting a family, which she believes will become more difficult when Silver Grove does close.

Remley cited the value of having the same teachers all through school — something that offers comfort and cohesion for poor kids who need a strong connection to learn. Remley said special relationships are consistently formed between instructor and learner, and that personal touch would go away if the students were bused to larger Campbell County schools.

“No child is left behind,” Remley said of Silver Grove Schools. “It’s just a magical place that’s gonna be — could potentially be lost.”

Kenton Hornbeck, Jay Wells and Nicole Ziege contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published as part of a project titled "Failing Our Future," conducted by an advanced reporting class at Western Kentucky University.