When you lose one student, your expenses are not all reduced. The heating and lighting and staffing is not necessarily reduced. Our expenses don't go down accordingly. Many Unity parents felt betrayed. No matter what the numbers said, they believed their children were being torn from their familiar and cherished community school.
People get upset.
Everybody wants to provide a good education. Children are very important, but we have to be able to meet our expenses and pay our bills. The same people who felt so strongly about their children felt just as strongly about losing their school. The community found itself polarized, and petitions for a recall election were circulated. I didn't think it would benefit the total of our kids in the district.