Rural School Consolidation Case Study

Many things have changed in our school education systems. From back in the day to how

Medomak Valley High School, located in Waldoboro, ME, is the only high school in Maine School Administrative District #40 and serves students from Friendship, Waldoboro, Warren, Washington, and Union in midcoast Maine. For decades, the school district had two middle schools - A.D. Gray Middle School, which served students from Friendship and Waldoboro, and D.R. Gaul Middle School, which served students from Warren, Washington, and Union. In the fall of 2008, the year I started at Medomak Valley High School, the district opened Medomak Middle School to serve all seventh and eighth grade students in the district and closed A.D. Gray Middle School and D.R. Gaul Middle School. The new middle school was built at the Medomak Valley High

Consolidation of the boards occurred from 1898 – 1901. At that time a central board was established, superintendents of schools, school regulations, and

As mentioned in previous writings, East Bridgewater has gone through a reorganizational period throughout the last 4 years. Although positive aspects have emerged including an increase in technology to meet the needs of the 21st century student, a new state of the art building, and an increase in funding for the school district to sustain the new building, there has also been negative facets as well. After the reorganization of the district in the 2012 - 2013 academic year, East Bridgewater Jr/Sr High school went from a Level 1 9-12 school to a Level 2 7 - 12 school. Student enrollment, which has increased due to the new building and school choice, currently serves approximately 1016 students

Companies as well as families view Elk Grove, California as a favorable city for relocation. While officials are kept busy maintaining the high quality of city services that have contributed to the Elk Grove’s popularity, school here have had to face their own issues. It has been hard for the Elk Grove Unified School District to keep up with the influx of students, but as the state’s fifth largest school district it does have economy of scale working in its favor. Another plus is that parents here know they can augment their child’s classroom experience by turning to tutoring services, among which test prep for Elk Grove youngsters is one of the most popular.

Education and understanding what the shift entails, how this will improve students academically, who will it directly affect, why the standards are better than the current curriculum, when will the grades improve and what if success is not the outcome? There will always be parents or grandparents that go the extra mile with their children by introducing all kinds of reading and learning before the child even begins school, possibly giving that student the

Predominantly urban, many of these schools are, by almost any measure, less congenial to learning than others, because proportionally, they have more teachers who are inexperienced, poorly trained, and uncertified; more textbooks that are outdated; fewer computers; larger class sizes... The collective case is indisputable: the students who most need our best teachers and best learning environments rarely have access to either (Robert Evans, "Reframing The Achievement

Progress comes with a price, however. We cannot make room for kindergarten children in their neighborhood elementary buildings, accommodate continued growth in housing in the new neighborhoods, and not change boundaries. This will require that some neighborhoods move from one elementary building to another in order to balance enrollments. These changes will happen in two phases—the first will be for next school year. A neighborhood just east of Sheyenne and north of 40th Avenue that had been assigned to Freedom Elementary has been reassigned to Aurora. Aurora’s attendance area will be divided, with the opening of Brooks Harbor Elementary to the north of Aurora. Freedom must lose some of its attendance area in order to accommodate kindergarten children. The second phase of boundary changes will happen across the district prior to fall of 2018. On the north side of I-94 boundaries will have to be adjusted when the new north-side elementary school opens, and so that kindergarten children can attend their neighborhood schools. Lodoen Kindergarten Center will be repurposed to house early childhood special education and Head Start classrooms from across the district. On the south side, boundaries will need to be adjusted more with the transitioning of the Osgood Kindergarten Center into Osgood Elementary.

With the completion of Wilburton Elementary School, enrollment numbers will significantly decrease at the elementary schools in the northwest corridor of Bellevue. Although Wilburton will provide relief for certain schools in Bellevue, it isn’t a viable long-term solution for another highly populated region, Somerset. The regions surrounding Somerset has one of the largest populations under 18 at 24.27%, and a potential to rise even higher, hence the high enrollment numbers in the south corridor of Bellevue. The proposed elementary school* would be able to reduce enrollment numbers in Newport Heights, Woodridge, Somerset, Eastgate, Lake Hills and Spiritridge. The proposed plan would mean a significant reduction in attendance area at the schools listed above, as a result boundary lines will have to be redistricted to incorporate the proposed plan. The proposed boundary shifts also integrates regions with very different ethnic backgrounds, each original region will be well represented in the new school with dominant races such as Hispanic, White and Asian mixed together. The proposed school would also incorporate students of varying academic proficiency, with three original elementary schools ranking in the top 5 of Bellevue, while one representing the lower half of the spectrum based on SBAC test scores. The mix of student proficiencies and cultures would be highly rewarding for students as they converge together with different cultures and study backgrounds, which is

Communities and educators are seeking programs like Charter and Magnet Schools, in place of the traditional public school setting. Charter Schools allow teachers and a local school board to determine decisions regarding education. Likewise, the teachers and the local school board are also held accountable, in regards to student performance. In regards to magnet schools, students are given an opportunity to learn through themes. Henceforth, these themes are usually centered on the talents of the students. For example, a magnet school could be designed around performing arts. The School-Within-A-School is similar to the magnet school idea. Consequently, these alternative school programs allow students to learn through their individual interests. However, there are other forms of alternative programs. Multi-Aged Classrooms is designed based on the layout of the school. In a Multi-Aged Classroom setting, students are not grouped according to their age, but are grouped based on developmental stages. Therefore, all students are grouped in one classroom with numerous teachers. The students receive one on one instruction. Therefore, the instructional process is delivered based on the needs of a particular student. Another aspect of alternative programs deals with the economic and the environment of the school. In a School/ Community Economic Development the primary focus is on the local economy. The students work with municipal planners, research spending patterns, and start-up of student businesses. In the Community-Based School, the school draws on the local environment as a way to make abstract concepts and textbooks lessons more meaningful. Finally, the last alterative program is the Year-Round School idea. This approach is designed to keep students in school longer durations of time with short breaks in between. Although the year round school can vary, research has suggested that student

As cuts to educational funding continue, the question of lowering overall costs through school and district consolidation emerges at all levels. Arguments for consolation, which merges districts and consolidates their management, rest primarily on two presumed benefits: (1) fiscal efficiency and (2) higher educational quality. However, a review of current research evidence suggests that after a century of consolidation, most fiscal or educational efficiencies have been realized by the system (Howley, Johnson & Petric, 2011). Furthermore, mandated consolidation directives may actually lead to adverse impacts and, while serving a public relations purpose in a time of crisis, are unlikely to be a reliable way to obtain substantive fiscal or

Since 1805 public schools have been the backbone of many Americans and their strive for an education. On top of this, public schools, according to the Huffington Post, equate to 91% or 50.7 million of those attending pre-Kindergarten through the 12th grade. But, with other school types such as year-round attending over 2 million students, the question begs, “Which school type provides their students with the best education”?

Academy schools and high schools had their similarities and differences in the 19th century. Their focus was to properly prep students for after either academy school or high school for the work force or to go to college. Academy schools focused on mainly religion and the curriculum. Although during the civil war there was a decline in attendance for the school. The high schools had public funds and was state supported. Like the academy schools, high schools focused on the curriculum for the students’ education. They also established schools just for young girls. These two different types of school have had their differences and similarities but have helped shaped schools in today’s times.

Using the example of my senior year, the teachers were largely impacted by this curriculum change. They had to expand their lesson plans for each day, and use strategies to keep the attention of high school students for 30 minutes longer. Most teachers adjusted alright, but there are always a few who didn’t want to change the way they taught for decades. Without the help of parents and the community, the change ended up being

by Karen Dorgan — 2004 This qualitative research project studied the efforts of a small public elementary school over the course of 1 academic year to meet higher standards imposed by the state. The state's department of education defined school success in terms of the percentage of students passing a set of multiple-choice, standardized tests in four core areas of the curriculum. The study looked particularly at strategies the school applied in an attempt to raise students' mathematics test scores. Interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis were used to analyze the effects of new