Union City To Single A?

[sportsradiotn]

Union City's enrollment numbers as of last week were 387 in grades 9-12...The division line in football is 361 and under....The last time the classes were drawn Union City was at 442....Union City will play where they are classified....As bad as Union City was last year they would have still made the playoffs and probably won the region they would have been placed in....When Obion County Central builds their new school, you are going to see the numbers drop even more at Union City...Its my guess thats the reason that the talk of combining the county and city school systems have resurfaced....And when that gets the obligatory lip service it will receive,don't be surprised to hear that some in Union City will be talking about a private or magnet school being formed....As for me ,a graduate of and former football player at Union City,I see no reason in playing up if you dont have the numbers to compete with the teams in AA....Play where you are classified and see what happens.....

True those are the numbers that are current, but the enrollment numbers for classification will be determined by the 2004-05 school enrollment. The new enrollment numbers for the next classification period will include upcoming 8th graders and the current 9-11...which projects Union City for an enrollment of 365 or so. They have a very small current junior class and the upcoming 8th grade class is smaller than the current senior class.

Edited April 20, 2004 by sportsradiotn

[Coach]

The numbers that will be used are the ones that were turned in to the State Dept. in January. 8th graders will not be included in these numbers.

[sportsradiotn]

The number of enrollment for Union City reported in the Union City Daily Messenger was 364. I know Mike Hutchens very well and he is very thorough in researching any story. But, hey you say 391.

[Purple & Gold Standard]

All the numbers aside.....The question was what does everyone think of the possibility of Union City moving to the single a ranks...Would like to hear from fans of or radio and newsprint folks on how they feel about adding Union City to their schedules....I feel with Union City moving down they would have an easier time scheduling people and would not have to go to JCM and inner city Memphis teams to get games.....Of course that was a problem when UC was beating everybody down and noone wanted to play them...Now I dont imagine it would be hard for teams to agree to play them now that they have fallen on hard times....Redbird fan...my kids are two of the kids living in Union City and going to county schools....I and my brother and sister went to Union City and I would have never thought my kids would go anywhere else but Union City...Union City has problems that nobody ever talks about publicly and that is what happened in my case....Sportsradio..I know Mike very well too and I'm looking at the Messenger now and it says 387 in the top four grades as of earlier last week but that is irrelavent...If Union City has single a numbers they should play in single a...I think with adding South Fulton,Greenfield,Gleason and Bruceton along with keeping OCCHS and Martin Westview that will help with the gate and all those empty seats across the way on nights they play those rent-a-win games with Memphis schools..

[sportsradiotn]

Ah, occhsviachattanooga, you're one of the many traitors to the good ole Purple & Gold. LOL! My kids go to Gibson County schools - I live in GC but graduated from UC. True, there are problems in the school system, but they are either what every school encounters or they are blown out of proportion.

Anyway, I see the point of playing in the classification according to enrollment, but I also see the point of what the paper described as "ego". Union City has a tremendous amount of tradition in football, boys basketball and baseball in 2A. But, the recent football season not being what everyone was used to may be playing a part in the school's public stance on playing to their enrollment.

All the fans & supporters can do is voice their opinion on forums like this...but mainly they need to support the kids.

[Purple & Gold Standard]

I wouldn't say traitor ......LOL.....Along with the orange that runs through me Purple and Gold still courses through my veins too...But since my oldest son plays football for the Rebels now I can only root for the Tornadoes 9 times a year....

[sportsradiotn]

It's tough to go against the alma mater, but family does come first. I got to know Darren Bowling this past fall...he is a class act and hopefully will be the Rebels football coach for a long time. What he did in one season - changing the offense and winning a playoff game - was amazing. The kids seemed to really respond to him in the three games I saw.

[PowerSet]

When & if the schools merge.....Don't be surprised if Union City creates a private school and keeps the students they want and lets the county have the rest. There are more than enough people in Union City with the recources to make that happen. Some of them would do whatever it would take to keep their kids from having to associate with the county kids. The private school would draw kids from UC, Obion County, Martin, Dyer County, Gibson County, and other areas. Then, if the school is DI, they can hand pick the athletes and dominate rural NW Tennessee. If it is DII, it would still compete with and beat most small DII schools. Its a win/win situation for Union City. As was said earlier, the county would pay for the education of the city kids and the county would have to take up payments for the new school in UC. All this while the "in kids" get a private education. The rich get richer, and ............

[sportsradiotn]

When & if the schools merge.....Don't be surprised if Union City creates a private school and keeps the students they want and lets the county have the rest.  There are more than enough people in Union City with the recources to make that happen.  Some of them would do whatever it would take to keep their kids from having to associate with the county kids.  The private school would draw kids from UC, Obion County, Martin, Dyer County, Gibson County, and other areas.  Then, if the school is DI, they can hand pick the athletes and dominate rural NW Tennessee.  If it is DII, it would still compete with and beat most small DII schools.  Its a win/win situation for Union City.  As was said earlier, the county would pay for the education of the city kids and the county would have to take up payments for the new school in UC.  All this while the "in kids" get a private education.  The rich get richer, and ............

What powerset is talking about is that there is a committee being formed to look into the feasability of eliminating the Union City Special School District and all schools in the county be under one school system.

The rush to judgement is that it would take away Union City schools. It would not. What it would do is set boundaries for which school students could attend. Currently, there are none and several of the kids that live in Union City go to Obion County schools.

There are a couple of avenues that the combined school system could go down:

1. All schools - UC, OC & South Fulton - would operate as they currently do and the boundaries for enrollment would determine who went where.

2. All schools would operate as they currently do and one of the school buildings could be converted into a Magnet or Tech school.

The possibility of Union City transforming into a private school is less that 10-20%. That would be an option only if the schools closed. Like I stated, they won't close the schools.

The committee being formed is made up of local community leaders from Union City and the county.

It's getting expensive for the city to operate the school system and that's the reason it is being explored. All residents of Union City pay city taxes - which go to help operate UC schools - and they pay Obion County taxes - which go to operate OC schools. The alternatives for the city is to continuously raise taxes or to come under the Obion County School System umbrella and cut taxes and use the surplus money for improvements in the city limits - roads, parks, etc...

It is in the early stages, but it is something that has to be looked at because of the tax situation.

At least that's what I was told by the mayor.

 

By the way, powerset, if Union City became a private school, the funding for the school would come from tuition and donations, not from the county. As for funding the education of city kids, the county receives funds from the state, county residents and UC resident - in the form of taxes - to fund the education of kids. Like I stated earlier, UC residents pay taxes that go toward the education of both city and county students - something county residents do not. It was the choice of city residents when the UCSSD was formed.

Edited April 23, 2004 by sportsradiotn

[PowerSet]

By the way, powerset, if Union City became a private school, the funding for the school would come from tuition and donations, not from the county.  As for funding the education of city kids, the county receives funds from the state, county residents and UC resident - in the form of taxes - to fund the education of kids.  Like I stated earlier, UC residents pay taxes that go toward the education of both city and county students - something county residents do not.  It was the choice of city residents when the UCSSD was formed.

I didn't mean to imply that private school students would be funded by OC citizens. Thats why I said that many UC people are more than able to fund a private school, both its opening and their student's tuitions.

 

Also, like you said, it was the UCSSD's decision to form their own system and create a separate city education tax. If the UCSSD gave up control of their schools, that would not be Obion County's decision and the county would have to raise taxes to make up for the added expense of more students. So, basically, Union City would be getting rid of their problems (aging buildings and debt) at the County's expense and Obion County couldn't do a thing about it. And, if the current tax funds used for schools in the city are taken away from education and given to roads, parks, etc., the tax hike for the county would be substantial.

 

None of this is written out of anger and it is not intended to point fingers at anyone. I worked in Union City for years and still have many, many friends there, including current administration at many levels. I'm just afraid that Obion County will suffer and Union City will come out smelling like a rose. I want everyone to benefit from any changes and not see someone suffer from them.

Edited April 23, 2004 by PowerSet

[sportsradiotn]

I agree with you powerset...I went to school at Union City and would like for it to remain as is.

Money seems to rule everything though and that is unfortunate. The current sales tax in UC is 9.75% to help fund education and apparently that is not enough. Like with government and bad businesses everywhere, you have to wonder where the money goes. I figure the next avenue taken is for the sales tax to go up another 1/2 cent to fund whatever direction the UC schools are headed.

[Purple & Gold Standard]

As I said on an earlier post...don't be surprised by talk of the city forming a private or magnet school.....That has now come to fruition...Powerset, I don't really think that people would do almost anything to keep their city kids from the county kids thats really not the problem.....The problem at Union City is something that is never really talked about in a public forum...If you don't know what I am talking about...then do some research on the breakdown of the whites,african-americans and latinos in the city school system compared to the county.....It's kind of sad that in 2004 we still have to talk about things like this....but it is....Now with that said........My personal feeling is that the school board needs to put their heads together and figure out the real problems that face them...Number one why in the world such a great school system is losing students to the county and what they can do to solve that problem.....Or maybe they have and can't do anything and this consolidation and magnet school talk is the end result of them not coming up with a solution....