Consolidation provides cost savings for underlying structures but can have devastating consequences to some of the users of the structure.

For example, following the financial crisis, General Motors consolidated dealerships for needed savings. The company combined various brands to form “new” consolidated dealerships, each offering more brands. The accountants were right, operating costs were reduced and GM’s financial recovery was on its way. But 10 years later, GM faced a larger problem—the weaker brands were not surviving in the large “new” dealerships. Those brands would need to be discontinued.

The manufacturing plants for those brands would have to be closed. The consolidation savings was small compared to the tremendous costs and consequences of the plants closing.

Our Rowan-Salisbury Schools administration thinks the infrastructure of the schools and the education they provide are separate.

Like GM, they are focused on the savings of consolidation and not the education of all students, especially the weaker students. I am concerned how children ages 5 through 12 will survive in a consolidated elementary school of 1,200 to 1,500 students.

Will the weaker students, like the weaker brands at GM, be lost?

What are the factors that contribute to the success of elementary students? Why are weaker students more likely to succeed in smaller community schools? I think success comes from the environment of a school more than physical structure of the school.

Faith Elementary has been successful when you consider test scores, faculty evaluations and students performance in high school and beyond. Faith’s success obviously is not the physical structure itself, but where the structure is located. Faith Elementary is in the middle of a small, caring community.

I think, if the school administration considers the education of the students as well as the infrastructure where the education occurs, the conclusions will be to maintain a community-based Faith Elementary.

— Maxey Sanderson

Faith