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I was curious and have mentioned this in the past, but does anyone know for sure if county school districts would be covered under consolidation of government or would that be something different? I know of 2 or 3 SD's becoming one like Central Valley in Herkimer County(consolidation of Mohawk and Ilion), but was curious about this in terms of a county. I'm guessing that it may be a matter of all of the districts in a county coming to an agreement.
In WNY, most of the counties are simply too large in area to have a single consolidated high school. Erie County is about 40 miles long and about 30 miles wide at its widest. The school district "cultures" differ greatly among the northern suburbs, the southern suburbs, the city, and the much more rural southern and eastern towns. Allegany, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties are about 1200 square miles each, or about 30 x 40. You have differing cultures in Chautauqua County, too, with some very wealthy districts like Southwestern, Chautauqua Lake, and Westfield, some districts with high concentrations of minorities and poor students in Dunkirk and Jamestown. Some districts, like Cassadaga Valley and Pine Valley already spread over so much distance that children face long bus rides.
Also, some districts, like Springville, Gowanda, Pine Valley, and Arcade spread over multiple counties.
A more sensible model for the rural school districts in WNY is for regional districts which is what Warren County, PA has. Warren County is large in area and sparsely populated (a lot of it is part of the Allegheny National Forest). The Warren County Schools are divided up into 2 regions, with Warren in the South and Russell in the north, each with their own high schools. There are then several elementary schools that feed into the high schools. Warren County has a single Board of Education and a single superintendent I think.
There has been real interest in recent years in a regional HS serving some or all of the small districts in southwestern Chautauqua County (Chautauqua Lake, Clymer, Panama, Ripley, Sherman, and Westfield). I think the legislation to do this has been passed by the legislature, but now the school districts have to get their acts together and agree on the details, and as the old saw says, the devil's in the details.
In WNY, most of the counties are simply too large in area to have a single consolidated high school. Erie County is about 40 miles long and about 30 miles wide at its widest. The school district "cultures" differ greatly among the northern suburbs, the southern suburbs, the city, and the much more rural southern and eastern towns. Allegany, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties are about 1200 square miles each, or about 30 x 40. You have differing cultures in Chautauqua County, too, with some very wealthy districts like Southwestern, Chautauqua Lake, and Westfield, some districts with high concentrations of minorities and poor students in Dunkirk and Jamestown. Some districts, like Cassadaga Valley and Pine Valley already spread over so much distance that children face long bus rides.
Also, some districts, like Springville, Gowanda, Pine Valley, and Arcade spread over multiple counties.
A more sensible model for the rural school districts in WNY is for regional districts which is what Warren County, PA has. Warren County is large in area and sparsely populated (a lot of it is part of the Allegheny National Forest). The Warren County Schools are divided up into 2 regions, with Warren in the South and Russell in the north, each with their own high schools. There are then several elementary schools that feed into the high schools. Warren County has a single Board of Education and a single superintendent I think.
There has been real interest in recent years in a regional HS serving some or all of the small districts in southwestern Chautauqua County (Chautauqua Lake, Clymer, Panama, Ripley, Sherman, and Westfield). I think the legislation to do this has been passed by the legislature, but now the school districts have to get their acts together and agree on the details, and as the old saw says, the devil's in the details.
I was thinking in terms of districts versus what you sometimes see here in regards to a couple of districts combining.
That Warren County example is what I think could happen in NYS and is something I've mentioned before, as it allows communities to keep/maintain their identity while sharing costs.
With districts that go over multiple counties, you can grandfather them by the county the district is centralized in. For instance, here are the counties that are centralized in Cattaraugus County: https://reportcards.nysed.gov/view.p...ty=4&year=2012
You just consolidate those districts, including the parts that are in another county and go from there. You could initially keep things as is, unless there is a call or desire or consolidation between two former districts.
Chautauqua County is interesting given what you mentioned, along with a district like Silver creek, which also has a sizeable Native American student population due to taking in kids from the Cattaraugus Reservation.
Before my time, supposedly the area where I lived was involved in the first consolidation of central school districts in NYS when the McLean Central School merged with the Dryden-Freeville Central School. I heard at that time Virgil didn't pass the vote, but then joined with Cortland (which made that not the Cortland City SD, but the Cortland Enlarged City SD). All of these central school districts then (and successors still) cross the Cortland-Tompkins county line. I once figured out there were four high schools closer to our house than the one I attended.
My wife lived in a PA area that attended high school in MD, but that ended when the MD countywide school board closed that high school. The PA school board then raised the stakes by closing the three-room 1-6 (two grades per teacher, K remains non mandatory in PA) elementary school in that township, now the kids from that area K-12 see nearly an hour one way bus ride going around the end of the mountain into MD and back into PA.
I was in Wattsburg, PA once for work, and saw their architect's-dream school (boy would life be different in PA school districts if they had to vote on borrowing like NY central schools do) a rifle shot away from the southwest corner of Chautauqua County. The schools they had shut down were more modern than the 3 elementary schools remaining even today in the Dryden CSD.
I'm not sure the cause of education and thereby of society is actually served by having all these local fiefdoms.
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Our school districts in VA are county wide and work fine. Even in counties such as Fairfax which has some incorporated cities/towns they either use county schools or build their own schools and have the county run them. There really is no justification to have 8 school districts in Rockland which is less than 100 square miles developed or Onondaga which has 18 school districts. You can have 1 district but have school enrollment based on common sense and location there is no rule that says you will be bussed to the school furthest from your home.
Our school districts in VA are county wide and work fine. Even in counties such as Fairfax which has some incorporated cities/towns they either use county schools or build their own schools and have the county run them. There really is no justification to have 8 school districts in Rockland which is less than 100 square miles developed or Onondaga which has 18 school districts. You can have 1 district but have school enrollment based on common sense and location there is no rule that says you will be bussed to the school furthest from your home.
And for Suffolk and Nassau Counties no reason why you need a combined 124 school districts....sigh.
I figured using them as an example would open a holy war, they are the perfect example of abuse to the n.th degree...
They aren't alone, as Upstate, according to the Buffalo Business Journal's School Rankings has 432 school districts. That doesn't even count the school districts that are 1 school, k-6 or 8 SD's or districts in the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown or Kingston areas. So, we're probably looking at close to 600 school districts.
They aren't alone, as Upstate, according to the Buffalo Business Journal's School Rankings has 432 school districts. That doesn't even count the school districts that are 1 school, k-6 or 8 SD's or districts in the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown or Kingston areas. So, we're probably looking at close to 600 school districts.
Crazy any way you look at it. Between Buffalo and Syracuse though there is a lot of space, take a look at the density of Long Island and justify the # of school districts. Schools themselves? Sure. Districts with all the associated overhead? No way.
And for Suffolk and Nassau Counties no reason why you need a combined 124 school districts....sigh.
There is no reason for it, but it is something that is near impossible to change.
They tried to work around this many years ago with bussing, using a de-segregation argument. The communities went nuts and the bussing concept was defeated.
While you can certainly point to "racism" as a reason, the real issue was money. If I am paying outrageous school taxes to my district, you have no right to send my kid to a school in another district where they will get a (real or perceived) lesser education. I moved to this area, paid what I did for my home and agreed to this tax rate based on the school district I expected to be in.
Conversely, if you are paying much lower school taxes in your district, you should not be entitled to my district's services.
To change the system on Long Island would require a complete re-work of the school tax system. It would also have the side effect of drastically changing property values in some areas.
Homeowners in "better" school districts would never go for a plan like that. Their property values would likely decrease. They bought into a certain area based on a certain school... hard to justify taking that away.
While homeowners in "lesser" school districts might see this as a benefit, they would likely see a school tax increase. As a result, many them would also oppose such a plan to consolidate.
Long Island has a high density population and is also very diverse. The needs of one area may not match the needs of the next town over. Garden City and Hempstead... Dix Hills and Wyndanch... A solid argument could be made that neighboring sections like these have needs different enough to justify separate school districts.
In the school district I live in, kids can have a 30+ minute bus ride to school. Expanding the district through consolidation wouldn't help that, but could potentially increase it.
I agree it is a crazy system. However, it is so ingrained into the fabric of Long Island that it couldn't, and probably shouldn't, change. It is an important pillar of the entire LI housing market - people typically buy based on school district rather than a town.
The one theoretical advantage of consolidation would be to lower costs. In reality, when has any government run program resulted in lower taxes? For that matter, most corporate mergers never generate the forecasted savings.
While I doubt there would be any real savings, any that did accrue would be pumped into other programs. More likely, there would be an initial "cost" to achieve consolidation which would result in higher taxes for everyone, and those taxes would continue into future years. So the taxpayer gets no relief, while also losing local control due to decisions being made to accommodate a larger, more disparate student population.
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