Would, Could, or Should Ohio Consolidate School Districts (Columbus, Youngstown: houses, neighborhoods)
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I already doubt it would mean full mergers in most cases, but sharing of resources would be a definite possibility. Districts don't want to rid themselves of their unique identity, however, administrative costs are skyrocketing. There are only so many levies and bond issues that people can take.
One of my neighbors, who retired to Youngstown from Florida, insists that, to fix the schools, we should go to a county system. Imagine the money that would be saved if there were only 88 school boards/administrations in the state instead of the hundreds we have now.
Loss of identy could be an issue. IMO, many kids identify with their school first. But parents, on the other hand, probably do identify with the district more than the individual school.
I am the product of a consolidation back in 1969, at the beginning of my senior year. It was not real pretty at the time, and looking back, I still don't see enough of a benefit to justify all the issues, some of which still exist. We were the smaller group from school Y who were moving in to school X. There is one thing that is perhaps a little petty, but it still grinds me a little the wrong way. The class officers that year were all from the larger school (more in the class knew them at election time) and that was the group that organized our 10 year reunion. Only 3 of the members of the class who came in from school Y received notification of the festivities. At the "meeting" portion of the reunion, I asked why not everyone was notified, I was told that the person who had the "Y" list, misplaced it and they couldn't find all the addresses. I asked "If we all graduated together, why was there an X list and a Y list?" No explanation. 10 years later, we were still pushed aside.
That being said, I can see some definite advantages to sharing services between districts, including things like Special Needs services, group purchasing of certain items, etc. I do not think that total consolidation is the answer. You would still need multiple school buildings just because of the large territory in each county. Those buildings would still need administrators, teachers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians, bus drivers, etc.
I'm not sure there would be as large a savings as people think without careful study and planning.
One thing I have observed, and this is by no means scientific data, but it seems there is more pride, and thus support, in the smaller local school districts, than in the larger urban districts. It just seems there is less friction and more cooperation in a hometown system.
Absolutely, consolidation is a great idea. There are currently about 33 districts in Cuyahoga County. I think that number could easily be cut in half without rocking the boat too much by merging similar neighboring districts. However going to one centralized county system would have disastrous consequences. Rightly or wrongly, people would be scared by the changes and there would be an even larger migration of people out of the county. Same thing would probably happen in Summit County.
However in the more rural areas, I think countywide mergers could work more smoothly and effectively.
So in short, I do think we need more consolidation of school districts (and even municipalities), but we must be careful how we do it.
We don't have the facilities, and such a plan would take our state education down to the level of cesspools like Arizona. Identity was mentioned, another major reason against such a proposal, and larger schools = lower quality, generally, as the lack of a personalized atmosphere is lost.
Elem. schools are small for a reason. So are school districts
I am the product of a consolidation back in 1969, at the beginning of my senior year. It was not real pretty at the time, and looking back, I still don't see enough of a benefit to justify all the issues, some of which still exist. We were the smaller group from school Y who were moving in to school X. There is one thing that is perhaps a little petty, but it still grinds me a little the wrong way. The class officers that year were all from the larger school (more in the class knew them at election time) and that was the group that organized our 10 year reunion. Only 3 of the members of the class who came in from school Y received notification of the festivities. At the "meeting" portion of the reunion, I asked why not everyone was notified, I was told that the person who had the "Y" list, misplaced it and they couldn't find all the addresses. I asked "If we all graduated together, why was there an X list and a Y list?" No explanation. 10 years later, we were still pushed aside.
That being said, I can see some definite advantages to sharing services between districts, including things like Special Needs services, group purchasing of certain items, etc. I do not think that total consolidation is the answer. You would still need multiple school buildings just because of the large territory in each county. Those buildings would still need administrators, teachers, secretaries, cafeteria workers, custodians, bus drivers, etc.
I'm not sure there would be as large a savings as people think without careful study and planning.
One thing I have observed, and this is by no means scientific data, but it seems there is more pride, and thus support, in the smaller local school districts, than in the larger urban districts. It just seems there is less friction and more cooperation in a hometown system.
I understand your concern, but a lot of people confuse 'School DISTRICT Consolidation' with 'school consolidation.' Just because you consolidate districts doesn't necessarily mean you consolidate schools. In fact, in most cases it doesn't make sense to consolidate and/or close some schools as many new ones have been built over the past decade plus. Not to mention that a lot of buildings are already operating near or at capacity, they couldn't take on adding an influx of students from a nearby closing school.
The main reason to consolidate is to eliminate the administrative overhead waste. Where I am from originally - Stark County - there are 17 school districts for a population of approximately 350k people; where I live now - Richland Co. SC - there are 2 school districts for about the same amount of people (close to 50k students)!! What that means is we pay 2 superintendants as opposed to 17, and while each district has an 'assistant superintendant,' I can live w/paying a couple of them as opposed to 15 extra 6-figure salaries! There are tiny schools in Stark Co. that have no business having their own superintendant, school board, etc. like East Canton, Tuslaw & Sandy Valley. At the bare minimum, East Canton should be consolidated w/Louisville, Tuslaw w/Massillon (or Northwest) and Sandy Valley with Canton South. In those cases, it might make sense to actually combine the 2 high schools into one. The 2 districts we have here in Richland Co. (RSD 1 & RSD 2) have 12 separate high schools (soon to be 13 as they will be opening a new one in the next few years), it's not like all the kids pile into 2 high schools or anything!
While I realize this would cause some anger and sadness over the loss of some identities in communities - especially the smaller ones as you point out - the bottom line is these are PUBLIC schools, therefore, the schools (as all government SHOULD do, yet sadly too often doesn't) need to do what's in the best interest of the taxpayers. If combining the school district I live in with the neighboring one is going to save me tax $$ going forward, I am all for it being that the quality of education isn't going to suffer - which it shouldn't. And while property taxes make up a good portion of school funding, state taxes also make up a significant portion of it; which means whether you realize it or not, if you pay state taxes, you are in essence helping support that struggling school district of less than 1000 students 200 miles across the state that you've never even heard of.
Maryland has school districts run by each county, and I certainly didn't like it. My SIL lived less than 5 minutes from me, yet all her kids went to a different "cluster", which means elementary, middle and high school group. Some neighborhoods were divided in the middle of the street-one side went to one cluster, the other went to a different cluster.
Then there was the problem of the more expensive parts of town had the better schools, and the middle or lower income people got the not so good schools. We bought in a nicer middle class area, but during the 9 years we lived there, demographics changed drastically and our cluster was no longer a good choice.
It isn't a bad idea if it's done right; it may be a great idea for some of the more rural areas.
But if you told me that I bought a house in say, Vandalia or Butler Township so my kids could go to Butler, I would not be happy if things changed and my kids had to go to Northridge.
Maryland has school districts run by each county, and I certainly didn't like it. My SIL lived less than 5 minutes from me, yet all her kids went to a different "cluster", which means elementary, middle and high school group. Some neighborhoods were divided in the middle of the street-one side went to one cluster, the other went to a different cluster.
Then there was the problem of the more expensive parts of town had the better schools, and the middle or lower income people got the not so good schools. We bought in a nicer middle class area, but during the 9 years we lived there, demographics changed drastically and our cluster was no longer a good choice.
It isn't a bad idea if it's done right; it may be a great idea for some of the more rural areas.
Funny thing is these problems sound almost identical to the current problems with the way school districts in Ohio are set up. You still have a situation where the wealthier cities/suburbs tend to have better school districts, and you still can have two families living within a few houses of each other on the same street but sending their kids to different districts. The first issue, in theory, could be helped out a bit by school district consolidation. The second issue is always going to exist, no matter what system is put in place.
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Reading through the first 8 comments, I have noticed that it is the people in the larger failing districts that support consolidation, yet they want to mention struggling districts with 1000 kids or less.
Your world is upside down. There are no struggling small districts. The worst districts are city schools. Youngstown city schools are officially the worst schools in Ohio. Somebody else said that saving money should be the bottom line. That's wrong. The best education possible for our kids is the bottom line. It's funny though, the best school districts in the State are the smaller districts that spend around 7 grand per kid, and the worst districts are the large schools that spend around 15 grand per kid. That tells me that large schools don't save any money, and they provide a lousy education.
The last thing we need to do is take any advice from Florida schools. Their public school system is terrible, and the waiting list for private schools is 2 years. I had a coworker move to the Miami area. He spent a year down there. The schools were so bad, he packed everybody up again, and moved them back to the Beaver Local School district. As bad as Beaver Local is, it is still 10 times better than any Florida school. My new neighbors lived in Orlando. They figured out that they could quit paying tuition to a private school, buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood, get a better education, and be a whole lot safer for a lot less money in Ohio than they could in Florida.
There's a reason that Private schools are so popular in the South, and in big cities. Large consolidated school districts suck.
Did I mention that I'm against consolidated schools?
Reading through the first 8 comments, I have noticed that it is the people in the larger failing districts that support consolidation, yet they want to mention struggling districts with 1000 kids or less.
Your world is upside down. There are no struggling small districts. The worst districts are city schools. Youngstown city schools are officially the worst schools in Ohio. Somebody else said that saving money should be the bottom line. That's wrong. The best education possible for our kids is the bottom line. It's funny though, the best school districts in the State are the smaller districts that spend around 7 grand per kid, and the worst districts are the large schools that spend around 15 grand per kid. That tells me that large schools don't save any money, and they provide a lousy education.
The last thing we need to do is take any advice from Florida schools. Their public school system is terrible, and the waiting list for private schools is 2 years. I had a coworker move to the Miami area. He spent a year down there. The schools were so bad, he packed everybody up again, and moved them back to the Beaver Local School district. As bad as Beaver Local is, it is still 10 times better than any Florida school. My new neighbors lived in Orlando. They figured out that they could quit paying tuition to a private school, buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood, get a better education, and be a whole lot safer for a lot less money in Ohio than they could in Florida.
There's a reason that Private schools are so popular in the South, and in big cities. Large consolidated school districts suck.
Did I mention that I'm against consolidated schools?
Southeast Ohio does have small, very scary and downright horrible school districts for sure, but you are correct that any Ohio district is a cakewalk compared to the tastless, impersonal, bureaucratic schools of states like AZ, FL, and NV.
In a way, I can see the argument for consolidated schools, but in the end it would just lead to worse quality for all, as every school would be taken down to the lowest common denominator instead of just having the schools which choose or are forced to reside at such a low stature now.....
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