Election set on future of Oldham-Ramona-Rutland School District

Voters in the Oldham-Ramona-Rutland School District will determine the fate of the school district when they head to the polls in December.

According to the ORR website, the election will be Dec. 16. The voting will take place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. There will be three polling sites:

• St. Willams Catholic Church Parish Hall in Ramona.
• The Rutland school gym.
• The Oldham Community Center.

Absentee voting started on Oct. 31 and will continue through Dec. 15. The absentee voting site is the Rutland school during school hours or by appointment. Appointment can be made by calling 605-586-4352.

Voting for the reorganization plan is a vote to close or dissolve the ORR district.

If the residents vote against the plan the district will keep the ORR district open.

According to the ORR website, if the district is dissolved 42 staff members will be terminated, while 193 students would be moved to other districts that are adjacent to the district.

A group of citizens cast doubt on the future of the school district when it filed a petition to dissolve it.

An opt-out vote to fund a new school in ORR last fall resulted in a lawsuit to halt the construction project and spurred the petition efforts. If voters decide to end the school system, the district land and some of the district assets would be divided among adjacent school districts.

After the petition was filed, the South Dakota Department of Education required the district to develop the reorganization/dissolution plan that will now be decided by the voters.

The plan posted on the ORR website lists how the districts land would be attached to adjacent school districts:

• The Brookings district would receive 0.6% of ORRs land.
• The Arlington School District would receive 25.3% of the ORR land.
• Colman-Egan and Sioux Valley would take over 6.6% and 11.8% of the ORR district respectively.
• The Lake Preston School District would receive 12.5%.
• Other districts and the percentage of the ORR district they receive are De Smet, 1.6%; Chester, 2.8%; Madison, 17.7%; and Howard, 21%.

According to the document, if passed, the dissolution of the ORR school district would be effective June 30, 2026.

Contact Doug Kott at [email protected].