No Weiner Delight

There will be no Weiner-Delight, the Arkansas Education Board ruled yesterday.

The board unanimously rejected a merger proposal that would have created one of the most humorously bizarre school district names in the nation.

School officials in tiny Wiener, situated south by southwest of Jonesboro in northeast Arkansas, started looking for a district with which to partner when it became apparent that their enrollment was  dropping below the state-set minimum of 350 students.

Not wanting to lose their identity by being absorbed into one or more adjacent school districts, they finally settled on the idea of a consolidation with the Delight School District, which also has an enrollment under 350.

But Delight is about 200 road miles southwest of Weiner – a 3 hour 37 minute drive according to Google Maps. It was the first proposed merger of non-contiguous school districts in Arkansas history.

School officials believed the proposed merger would benefit both districts through the use of distance learning, which presumably would expand curriculum offerings.

The Arkansas Education Board didn’t buy it.

The two school corporations will most likely be absorbed by their neighbors, losing their individual identities, whether they like it or not.