Jeff Eide:
When I started, I think we were at 850,000 students in the state for students, and now we're around 800,000. So within my timeline — four years — that's a big drop of students within the declining enrollment within the system. But that's across the board. And the challenge with declining enrollment really embeds itself into — if I have declining enrollment but I still need all my teachers, I'm not receiving as much funding as I had in the past but I still need all my teachers. Because if I have 12 grade levels, and within that I lose 20 students, but only like two or one in each one of the grade levels are declining, I still need the teacher. I can't just eliminate a teacher. All 20 students aren't in one class that usually, you know, for the declining enrollment. So I still need that resource. But I have less funding potentially because of the system.

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School closures are challenging because we as individuals have our heart within that community, within that school. We see that as our identity. So it becomes a difficult time when we have to close a school. I don't think anybody sits back and says, "Hey, let's close a school today." They're saying, "How can we keep the school? But if there comes a time when maybe the school is older or it needs more maintenance, what do we do? Do we go to a capital referendum where we build a school? Will we get that at this point in time or not?" So in essence, closures are a challenge in any community, but in a rural community, it becomes even more challenging because that's your identity, that's who you are.