The Oldham-Ramona-Rutland school board’s creation of a plan to dissolve their school district may look like a surrender to the fractious constituents who fought the board’s consolidated building proposal and petitioned for dissolution last March, but as indicated by the outraged response of district boosters to my Sunday analysis of the dissolution plan, the board and many residents are still fighting to keep their dwindling school district alive.
ORR Superintendent Dawn Hoeke tells Dakota Free Press that the district does not want to dissolve. In advancing the dissolution plan, the board is simply carrying out legal obligations triggered by citizens’ filing of the dissolution petition. When 190 district voters (the signature threshold is 15% of registered voters in the district) filed their petition on March 20, they started a statutory clock: SDCL 13-6-10 gave the board 180 days to develop a dissolution plan and submit it to the Department of Education for approval. With that plan now submitted to Pierre, the DOE has 90 days to approve it.
But a school district can’t dissolve (or consolidate or otherwise reorganize) just on the Secretary of Education’s say-so. The public has to vote. In a unique expression of executive power, under SDCL 13-6-41.2, the Secretary of Education gets to set the date for the election, which must take place within 90 days of the Secretary’s approval of the dissolution plan.
Superintendent Hoeke guesses Secretary Joe Graves will formally approve the plan next week. If Secretary Graves signs off a week from today, on October 22, the 90-day deadline would fall on Tuesday, January 20—not a bad day for an election, except the ORR boys play basketball in Estelline that night, so fans would have to vote earlier in the day. The ORR calendar shows no school activities on Tuesday, January 6, one day after classes resume after the holiday break.
SDCL 13-6-41.1 limits the dissolution vote to voters in the Oldham-Ramona-Rutland school district. The nine districts that would absorb pieces of ORR do not go to the polls. Those absorbing districts’ school boards do have to pass resolutions to accept the proposed pieces (SDCL 13-6-13).
SDCL 13-6-47 requires a majority vote to pass a plan to consolidate or divide a school district, but in a possible slip of the lawmaking tongue, that statute says, “If the secretary of the Department of Education finds that fifty percent of the votes cast in a district are in favor of a plan to dissolve the district and annex its territory to another district, or districts, as set forth in the plan, the plan shall be considered approved by the voters” [emphasis mine]. If 600 people vote (a bit more than the December 2024 bond election) and split right down the middle, 300 for dissolving the district, 300 against, a majority requirement would give the win to the nays. But the deviation in the statute’s language on dissolution votes to “fifty percent” gives a tie to the ayes.
So expect a vigorous campaign over the holidays in Oldham, Ramona, and Rutland to decide whether the district will dissolve or whether residents will continue to support their small rural school.
Deep Election Technicalia: Even if district boosters can secure 50% plus 1 against dissolution, district dissolvers could still fight for a re-vote. SDCL 13-6-49 allows the board to call a special election within one year from the date of the previous election to reconsider a rejected reorganization plan. That statute also requires a reconsideration vote if 20% of district voters petition for a re-vote.