Jennings County players and fans celebrate their first sectional title since 2005 after a 51-39 win against New Albany on Monday.
It’s been more than a decade since two boys high school basketball teams in our area advanced to the Indiana High School Athletic Association regionals during the same season. Columbus North and Jennings County both broke long sectional droughts to bring fans titles.
The North Bull Dogs (17-8) and Jennings Panthers (23-2) both will compete today in the Seymour Regional of the IHSAA Class 4A tournament. Jennings will face Evansville Reitz at 4 p.m. and North will take on Bloomington North at 7 p.m. Winners of those games will advance to the elite eight and semistate competition on March 18.
Both programs and their fans are enjoying the ride, and if recent games are an indication, they’ll have raucous booster sections cheering them on. Republic sports editor Ted Schultz reported the last time Jennings brought home a sectional title was in 2005. It hasn’t been that long for North, but it’s still been a spell, with the last regional appearance coming in 2013.
We wish both our local teams all the best today.
BCSC aims to boost graduation rates
On the subject of successful teams, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. is discussing the introduction of a team approach to increase graduation rates at Columbus East and North high schools.
Both schools not so long ago graduated more than 90% of seniors, as Columbus Signature Academy New Tech still does. But recently those numbers have fallen. Last year, North’s graduation rate was 83.2%, and East’s was 78.16%. Both were below the state average of 86.69%.
In an effort to reverse these trends, BCSC is considering a team model other school systems have used with success. As The Republic’s Mark Webber reported, teams for each school would consist of an assistant principal, a guidance counselor, an academic coach and an administrative assistant. These teams would stay with groups of students, getting to know them and their parents as students advance through grade levels.
The school board hasn’t adopted this plan yet, but if it does, it would take effect next school year. This sounds like a good way to boost accountability for schools, parents and students, particularly those that are at risk of dropping out. That’s a problem BCSC cannot ignore.
Is parking really a problem?
The Columbus Parking Commission has been headed in the right direction lately, namely for lifting time limits for parking on downtown side streets. They are recommending more such action, and that makes sense.
These moves are a welcome U-turn from earlier commission proposals that included installing parking meters downtown. That always seemed to us like a solution in search of a problem, and it also would have disadvantaged merchants and businesses downtown. Several business representatives have told the commission that charging for parking downtown would drive away business.
Regarding downtown parking, the city should take a fresh, big picture look at this issue by asking this question: “What is the problem we are trying to solve?” And in doing so, the city must have fresh data, post-pandemic, about what downtown parking looks like, hour by hour, street by street, every day of the week.
In the meantime, we encourage the city to continue removing time limits on downtown parking to the greatest extent possible. What could be the harm?
