South Vermillion looks to, preps for the future

Could the landscape of the South Vermillion School Corporation look different in the future?

It is possible, according to Superintendent Dr. Micah Williams, and he wants to make sure his district is prepared for whatever changes may come down the pipeline.

Williams confirmed to The Parke County Post that South Vermillion officials are considering future options, which includes the possibility of moving to one campus for the school corporation. 

"We never want to change to change. Over my 15 or 16 years in education, I know my first couple years, Kathy Smith, a long time educator at South Vermillion, had told me, every 10 years you are going to see a shift and it's going to seem like a new idea, but it is the same idea from 10 to 20 years before. As we continue to battle this enrollment and changes in education, whether it is charter or online, we have to continue to do what is best for our students," Williams told The Parke County Post. 

According to Williams, 390 students are enrolled in the high school, which has a capacity of 1,000. The superintendent said there will be debt falling off and the district has to decide whether to let it fall off or continue to budget it as debt service and not raise the tax money. 

'We are very cognizant of that in our community and district. We have about a 92 cent tax rate and the average over the past seven to eight years has been 96 cents in operations and debt service. We plan to do some projects coming up, and in April 2028, that is when we can issue the bond. Looking at that, are we making ample use of our facilities? Our high school is underutilized at this point. We have about 500 students in our 5 through 8 middle school and our elementary schools are sitting at about 560 students combined. We closed Ernie Pyle a couple of years ago, and we were concerned about numbers. Central Elementary is sitting with fewer students now than it did then, and Van Duyn is still sitting at 249 students," he said. 

The second-year superintendent said one of the options on the table is spending millions of dollars upgrading both Central Elementary and Van Duyn Elementary. 

"One of the options on the table is do you spend $10 million on Central Elementary, which was built in 1959, and you look at Van Duyn, which was built in 1961, and you are looking at 6 to 8 million. We don't need to build new facilities right now with our enrollment," he said.

One potential scenario that has been discussed among district officials and staff is moving the middle school to an elementary school and putting pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in one building with four wings. One wing would be pre-school through first grade, while there would be a second and third grade wing, a fourth and fifth grade wing and a sixth and specials wing. The middle school and high school would then combine and serve students in seventh though 12th grade, with approximately 620 students in that facility, according to Williams. 

"This would put us all on one campus, and, from a security standpoint, we could keep all of our school resource officers in one place. We would also be taking care of two buildings instead of four," Williams said. 

Williams acknowledged that there are some downsides that have been discussed.  

"A couple of downsides that have been brought up in the parent vision process is you have all of your students in one place. In the event something would happen, you have all your students in one place. But we heard the same thing when we closed Ernie Pyle about response times, they are too far out.  I think having all your SRO on one campus helps tremendously. We would always have three to four on this campus at one time. We also talked about traffic. There is the intersection where they took down the flashing light and we have talked about that, as well," Williams said. 

With the 2026-27 school year approaching, Williams said he will be spending June having community meetings to survey the community and garner feedback. 

"We want to sit down and have conversations with people and hear what the community is thinking. I love getting feedback about anything when it comes to our district. If you get feedback and a different perspective, it can only help. We will continue to have conversations, and I haven't heard a whole lot of negative feedback," Williams said.