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Muncie High School Consolidation Oral History Project records

 Collection
Identifier: MSS-D-003

Scope and Contents

This collection contains born-digital videos and transcripts for twenty-five oral history interviews with Muncie Community Schools Board of Trustees members, community leaders, and members of the community at large about the consolidation of Muncie Southside High School and Muncie Central High School in 2014. The interviews were conducted between September 2014 and June 2015 by C. Warren Vander Hill and Rich Usdowski for the Center for Middletown Studies and highlight perceptions of the process that led to the consolidation and the initial impact of this change. The interviews also help to contextualize the consolidation within the broader scope of Muncie's economic and social history. The Muncie High School Consolidation Oral History Project was directed and supported by Ball State University's Center for Middletown Studies and funded by The Community Foundation of Muncie & Delaware County.

Dates

  • 2014 - 2015

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Legal title, copyright, and literary rights reside with Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries, Muncie, IN. All requests to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted to Archives and Special Collections.

Historical Note

In 2013, in response to declining enrollment and increased financial troubles within the district, Muncie Community Schools began investigating cost containment solutions that would involve changes or reductions in several operational areas including facilities, personnel, technology, extracurricular activities, and transportation. Public town hall meetings were held on August 14 (Southside High School), August 27 (Northside Middle School), September 11 (Wilson Middle School), and October 8, 2013 (Central High School) to give community members an opportunity to provide suggestions and feedback about the future of the school district.

At a special meeting of the Board of School Trustees held on November 18, 2013 the board voted 4-1 to consolidate Muncie Central and Southside High Schools into a single high school, with the student body of Southside joining that of Central in the current Central High School building. The board also voted to convert the former Southside High School building into a middle school (Southside Middle School) and to close Wilson Middle School and place the building on the Indiana Department of Education list of closed, unused, or unoccupied school buildings until 2016. These actions were to become effective beginning with the 2014-2015 academic year. Board members Tony Costello, Debbie Feick, Michael Long, and Robert Warrner voted in favor of the recommendation, while board President Beverly Kelley voted against it. The stated reasons for the board's decision were that the proposed recommendations would result in significant cost savings, provide more educational and extracurricular opportunities for all students, and that Muncie Central was the only facility capable of accommodating all 9-12th grade students in the district.

Extent

0.1 Cubic Feet (Digital files (98.5 GB))

Language of Materials

English

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Digital file formats include Quicktime (MPEG-4) Video (.MOV), MPEG-4 (.MP4), Microsoft Office Open XML Document (.DOCX), and Adobe Portable Document Format (.PDF).

Custodial History

This collection was received by Archives and Special Collections as a donation from Jim Connolly, Director of the Center for Middletown Studies, on 07/06/2015.

Accruals

No further additions are expected.

Existence and Location of Copies

Digital materials from this collection are available online in the Ball State University Digital Media Repository:

http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/MncHSCnsOHP

Related Archival Materials

Materials relating to this collection may be found in the following collections in Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries, Muncie IN:

MSS.346: Muncie Community Schools high school consolidation records

SC.734: Kay Rankin opinion article on the Muncie high school consolidation

Processing Information

Collection processing completed 2015/07/17 by Brandon Pieczko. EAD finding aid created 2015/07/17 by Brandon Pieczko.

Title
Muncie High School Consolidation Oral History Project records
Status
Completed
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script

Repository Details

Part of the Stoeckel Archives of Local History Repository

Contact:
Alexander M. Bracken Library
2000 W. University Avenue
Muncie Indiana 47306 USA