If Tuesday's board of commissioners meeting were a boxing match, we believe the Roanoke Rapids and Weldon school systems delivered the knockout punch in the school merger issue.

The two systems issued a joint statement opposing the merger of the three school systems, one that had to leave merger proponents stunned and reaching for the smelling salts.

That one statement carries more clout than the report from the UNC Center for Civil Rights, which started this debate in the first place, a debate that is moot because there are currently not enough votes on the board to support it, leaving it at best a deadlocked issue.

We even saw board Chairman James Pierce take what we think is a softer stance on the matter during a break in the meeting, saying merger may not be the answer, that improving the three systems themselves may be the solution.

Suppose, however, there were enough votes. You would have to ask do you side with a study that we feel was based on studies of boundaries and board minutes and took a snapshot of only one school year to justify the ends or do you side with the weight the school systems in Roanoke Rapids and Weldon carry.

If we sat on the board we would have to side with Roanoke Rapids and Weldon because they know more about the ins and outs of educating children than a group of civil rights lawyers who were proven Tuesday to be off base.

The one thing UNC failed to look at were factors outside the issue of schools, namely a city, Roanoke Rapids, which is charting a dangerous course now economically if something is not done to solve the problem of the theater.

The prospect of sky high taxes looms overhead like an out of control meteor and to top that with the cost of a school merger would send not only Roanoke Rapids, but Halifax County into a tailspin that would greatly magnify the affects of this already Great Depression like economy we are in.

Weldon and Roanoke Rapids say a merger would mean an annual tax increase of $7.285 million for the citizens of Halifax County and the tax rate would be bourn primarily by those in the Halifax County school district who currently do not pay a supplemental tax and who comprise the largest segment of the overall county population.

This is one of the things the center, who stands for the civil rights for all and did a commendable job fighting for the de-annexation of Brandy Creek and the high taxes imposed on them, don't tell you.

There are many other factors involved in this debate that make us against the merger of the schools — the affect it will have on children who are told they can't succeed unless they are in class with a sufficient number of white middle class students; distraction from educational programming initiatives and the sheer logistics nightmare of trying with certain futility to reach a perfect racial balance.

One of the most important arguments and one we hold dear, is that, as stated in the joint release, consolidation would interfere with local autonomy and reduce opportunities for citizens to participate in decision-making.

“Regardless of any differences in the racial composition of our respective school districts, the governing boards (of Weldon and Roanoke Rapids) agree that the consolidation plan proposed by the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights is unwarranted, insufficiently supported by education research and extremely risky,” the statement says.

We would agree with the statement and something Pierce said, for all the school systems to now get together and cooperate with one another and improve.

Doing things like that would go a lot further than creating a giant snowball of confusion and more economic hardship on the citizens of Halifax County. If education is a prizefight, and in many ways it is, you need all the training you can get — Editor