Marshall, Missouri, June 7, 2440
Columbia Ledger
Matthew Johnathan Boone Marmaduke has responded to one of Marshall’s least glamorous growth problems with a characteristically large solution.
Land.
In a notice issued through the Marmaduke Freehold, Marmaduke said he has been trying to determine how Saline County schools can absorb the coming school year without overloading the existing district.
His conclusion was that Marshall itself does not have enough suitable space left for another major school campus.
So he intends to put one immediately outside it.
The Freehold will make land adjoining Marshall available to the school district under a 100-year lease for $1.
Marmaduke will then pay to construct the school himself.
The proposed campus is also intended to contain enough flexible space to relieve some of the growing pressure created by the annual Lolidayz Festival.
Marmaduke was explicit that the new school is not intended as a replacement for Marshall High School.
Quite the opposite.
He separately announced that he intends to rebuild Marshall High School next summer at his own expense.
The announcement therefore points toward two major campuses rather than one new institution replacing the old.
The only consideration Marmaduke publicly requested was that the district examine adding one new seat to the current school board for V’ren representation.
He did not ask that an existing member lose a seat.
He asked that one be added.
For a community currently dealing simultaneously with population growth, V’ren settlement, expanding festival traffic and a shortage of buildable land inside Marshall, that may be the smallest part of the proposal.
It may also become the part people argue about longest.
Social response
- @MarshallParentThree: A new school, Marshall High rebuilt next summer, and the land costs the district one dollar for a century. I am trying to identify the trap.
- @SalineCountyFeed: The trap may be construction traffic.
- @MarshallDad177: I can survive construction traffic.
- @MarshallParentThree: Same.
- @OldMarshallGrad: “This is not meant to compete with Marshall High School” is the line I needed to see.
- @MarshallClass2417: Same.
- @FutureMarshallMom: Rebuild it, do not erase it.
- @OldMarshallGrad: Exactly.
- @SchoolFacilitiesNerd: A 100-year lease at $1 is functionally removing land acquisition from the district’s capital problem.
- @MissouriEducationWatch: Which is usually one of the hardest pieces.
- @SchoolFacilitiesNerd: Especially when the town itself is already constrained.
- @MarshallLocal: Hence “immediately adjoining.”
- @LolidayzFestival: Yes, we noticed the part about expanded festival space.
- @MarshallLocal: Of course you did.
- @OldSchoolLolita: Do not turn classrooms into vendor storage.
- @LolidayzFestival: That is why purpose-built flexible space matters.
- @VrenParentMO: One board seat is a modest request if V’ren families are going to be part of the district for generations.
- @MarshallParentThree: Adding rather than replacing matters.
- @SalineCountyFeed: That will probably be the center of the public discussion.
- @VrenParentMO: As it should be.
- @TaxpayerHarry: “At my own expense” remains my favorite sentence in local government.
- @SchoolBudgetWatcher: Until maintenance arrives.
- @TaxpayerHarry: Fair.
- @MarshallLocal: Congratulations, you found the next meeting.
