A new school district started recently with the reorganization of Jefferson-Scranton and East Greene becoming Greene County Community School District.

Following February 2013’s approval vote, both J-S and EG School Boards have been working to close out their districts before the official bringing together of both districts happened on July 1st.

Greene County School Board President Sam Harding says both districts needed each other to continue to provide the best education possible for students.  East Greene’s enrollment numbers were declining to a point where they had to share programs with Jefferson-Scranton and J-S no longer has to cut its programming with the addition of East Greene students.

East Greene Past-President Marc Hoffman talks about the hardest part of making the decision to become one school district.

“Probably the hardest thing was just actually making the decision to consolidate your own hometown school.  I think I’m more just looking forward to the opportunities available to the kids in Greene County.”

Superintendent Tim Christensen says going forward, the Greene County School Board is made up of all five-members of the Jefferson-Scranton Board and two-members from the East Greene Board.  He adds that it will remain a seven-person school board until the year 2018.

There are extra financial benefits for reorganizing such as the district will receive up to $660,000 over the next few years and people will see a percentage of property tax breaks of up to $480,000 total over the next three years.