Do you think the state will mandate district consolidations?

[bengalfan76]

I would say in a county like Ross and Pike with all the new buildings consolidate the administration and BOE. Keep the individual buildings like in Southwest City but have the money coming to one site and spent to benefit all. Eliminate all the top heavy administration salaries. Supt, Assist Supt, and Curriculum, Bus coordinators. These salaries would enable schools to hire more teachers to offer a diverse curriculum.

[Syntax]

Z-V seems to be on to what is considered a viable option that makes monetary sense. The biggest fluff raised on not conoslidating small schools in administrative salaries. But, like Paladin mentioned, it has been insanely difficult and is almost a mute point.

The county-wide districts that seem to exist in multitudes in every state but Ohio (West Virginia, Kentucky, etc) seem to possess both the good and the bad. They create mega-schools that lose the personability of the student-teacher relationship, which is bad, especially for the low SES students. They do, however, streamline the administration load which saves money.

I just have to think that, while every district is unique and has unique needs, there could be some basic structure that encompasses both schools of thought for the best of both worlds. Consolidate the administration to cut down cost, but keep the neighborhood school. Defeat the prehistoric notions of lined rows of desks and grades aligned with chronological age. I could go on and bore all of you, but I think you get the picture.

I'll take Bengalfan76's view for example (I also know who you are! I recognize your style of writing from the mountain of email that we have exchanged inthe past. I'm sure you knwo who I am by now becuase I have bored you to tears with the stuff often at school). First, let's say that none of the new buildings existed in Ross County, becasue this contracts the districts to remain the same for at least 50 more years. Now, let's take a look at the districts before the infamous 60's consolidations, and think SMALL when we think K-12 units. Let's put a K-12 building in CLarksville, for instance, as well as Frankfort. Two smaller buildings. Divide the existing prinicipals between the two schools, teachers, etc. Perform this all over the county, keeping in mind that we must lose the notion that two grades can't exist together in the same room (research shows that multi-graded rooms succeed more often than not) while also embracing online and video-conferencing as a means of offsetting the need for specialized teachers thanks to NCLB. This is a long process and I won't write all about it at this time, but you end up with about the same number of buildings in Ross County (Elementaries become K-12, High Schools become K-12, etc). Cut down the number of superintendents by 75% or more, along with many other admnistrators. The list goes on, but there really is a viable - albeit sometimes new - method to answer the questions that arise.

I'll stop for awhile for comment.

[bengalfan76]

I think I know who you are, congrats on the addition to the family. Combining the resources and eliminating unneeded top weight would work. Even combining the BOE would allow for mor objective decision making. What is best for the whole not special interests.

[Paladin]

The model being discussed isn't a bad idea. The concept is to keep districts but consolidate every administration position into the County Bd of Ed. The trick is to carve out local control with a local Bd..leaving a partition of duties spread over several districts for a single or group of Administrators. There are currently shared Principals in several schools (half day at each) and some shared Principals/ Super( half day each).

And the big boogie man is consolidation with large inner city schools with rural or suburban . Culture shock, lol !!

[Zanes-Vegas]

Indeed, it is not a simple plan to implement. We're talking "sea change" on this one. And in this mostly conservative state, it's going to take some serious salesmanship to get it done!

I would suggest, too, that the "inner city vs. rural" issue would raise its head here. Zanesville is considered to be much more inner city than its county brethren, many of which are perceived to be almost "hickish." But as I make my way around these days, I see less and less of a difference between those types of school districts, especially as more and more folks in the Zanesville district begin taking up residence where more housing is available in the county districts. In other words, I'm seeing much more diversity -- and we're also seeing more prevalence of lower income housing -- in the county school districts.

The biggest issue, as Paladin indicates, is "local control." I would hope that if the state would consider this type of of a plan, part of it would be to grant "equal representation" on school boards from the areas previously serviced by individual districts. I know that one perception within the Zanesville City Schools -- true or not -- is that BOE representation tends to lean heavily toward one section of town, and that the BOE is not in tune with the rest of the district.

The bottom line in this whole debate, however, is that the state legislature has tried to respond to a major problem (defined by the State Supreme Court) by making minor tweaks to what has been deemed a broken system. What's needed in Columbus is bold leadership that is willing to risk political loss for the overall good of the state -- not people who are dancing around the issue in order to please the most voters and remain in office as long as possible.

In essence, those who are charged with making the changes are more afraid of doing the WRONG thing than the chance of being RIGHT, so they ignore it and hope it goes away.

[Syntax]

Well stated, Z-V and Paladin (as wel as Bengalfan). An interesting issue that would have been booted of of the Puddle immediately.

[buckfan84]

I would also add that even though there may be new buildings in school districts, it isn't that those buildings would not be used. Let's use the Trimble/NY schools as an example.

NY has a new elementary, building a JR High and remodeling the HS. Trimble, I believe, has a new HS and maybe elementary. NY could use the elementary school and Trimble would keep their elementary school, much like Athens, The Plains and Chauncey have their own. The JH could be bussed to Trimble's current HS and then the combined HS's would take over the new JH and NYHS.

Now, am I in favor of this? Not really, but this seems to be the thoughts of current administrators. I hate to see any community lose their HS as school functions are definitely an outlet to help keep a sense of community and more importantly PRIDE!!!!

Nelsonville and Trimble are definitely rivals but if either community needed something from the other, people would be lining up to give the shirt from their backs.

[NYBuckeye96]

That scenerio is kind of what I pictured in my head. With the new NY junior high being built next to the high school, the two buildings will be connected to each other and would make an ideal consolidated high school in the event NY and Trimble consolidated. Plus NY would have the modern athletic facilities that would still be right there at the consolidated high school.

If they combined, the new school would be Division III, slightly smaller than Vinton County. We could have two elementary schools - the current NY Elementary and the current Trimble Elementary. The current Trimble High School, built in 1988 I believe, could be turned into the consolidated junior high. The current NYHS and the new junior high being built could combine and turn into the new consolidated high school.

Bus trips would not be much longer than they are now, as these schools are close to each other anyways. Jacksonville will still have a school (elementary), and Glouster will still have a school (junior high), so the towns would not lose their schools. The only thing that would be lost would be sports teams.

I bet the travel time between NYHS and THS is a shorter drive than the travel time many students in neighboring districts have to travel such as Logan, Alexander, Federal Hocking, Vinton County, and Morgan. So we wouldn't have the problem of long bus rides. Even after consolidation, NY and Trimble combined would still take up less land than these districts I have mentioned.

[farmer]

The price of gas going up again today will not only cost the school district for their buses but also effect students/parents/fans who do not live close to the school. This will also cost more in repairs and replacement of buses with high mileage. So is the money they will be saving being canceled out? That would have to be answered by the individual schools.

I do agree with Paladan on the money spent on many administration which maybe better to be in a county board office. Some districts spend way to much to hire people to assist a person who is not doing their job. Some districts do a good job.

With technology being able to communicate with different buildings makes it easier. Also it allows teachers to teach without traveling from school to school if needed. With whatever plan the State will be looking at it needs to be flexible to adapt to the differences in each county across the state.

[keeping it real]

How about the key word OPEN ENROLLMENT!!!!!! How has it effected alot school districts that doesn't have open enrollment? I say,if you do not have open enrollment,maybe that would also keep alot of students in your school district.Do alot of school district's,have this open enrollment thing going on????

[Syntax]

In studying school districts, I have yet to come across one that does not have Open Enrollment. AS a district surounded by districts that do, you have to have it yourself or risk not fillinf the financial void that the departing students leave. A sad state of affairs, but the ugly truth.

[Zanes-Vegas]

Honestly, a public school district that does not have open enrollment these days is shooting itself in the foot, unless they are in a place where tax revenues are very good. There aren't that many of them left in this state, and I'd bet there are none in SEOP-land.

[bengalfan76]

I believe Zane trace does not have open enrollment, neither does Logan Elm. They have selective enrollment

[2trap_4ever]

With 7 school districts in Lawrence county and all having at least one building 12 years old or newer it would be hard to consildate here, besides the impending civil war that would follow when thinking of where the schools(yes i say schools because of size of the county you have to break it up into two districts), and what mascot banner would fly(it sounds funny but it they were to break up into two school districts there would have to be new mascots because Grover's and I-town would not go for Redmen just as Grovers and Rock Hillians would never be tigers and the same for Rock Hill and Ironton with Hornets). Although it is a novel theory of having Ironton, Rock Hill, and Coal Grove and part of Symmes Valley under on team and the other side of the county having South Point, Chesapeake, Fairland and the other half of Symmes Valley being the other team, I would like to think there are two top quality football teams right there.

[Orange and Brown]

You also have to consider that local school districts, or even local voters, would not have a say in an issue like this. The State of Ohio would have authority over this, so if the state education system said two districts had to consolidate, then those districts would have to consolidate, no matter what the school boards or voters wanted. If school boards and voters had a say in this issue, we would not have had all of the school consolidations we had in the 1960s because no one wanted to lose their school back then, but they didn't have a say in the matter.

NYBuckeye96,
I bet it would if the State BOE stated it was going to mandate several consolidations in Southern Ohio and as a whole block over this issue, SOUTHERN OHIO threatened to vote the Governor, State Reps / State Senators out of office due to an issue like this?

Remember we may be a less populated block, but George Bush (Republican) took Ohio over John Kerry (Democrat) due to Southern Ohio's votes. Thus getting re-elected due to Ohio. Without Southern Ohio, John Kerry would most likely be finishing up on his 1st term as President of the United States, and preparing to run for a second term, something many of us would have wished happened now, but that is old news. Did we forget about that situation? Former Governor James Rhodes from Coalton, Ohio (Jackson County) re-took the office as a Republican defeating the then present Governor of Ohio, Governer John Gilligan Democrat in the 70's in a come-back victory due to votes coming in from Southern Ohio. All was given up on the Rhodes campaign until Southern Ohio swung the tide from the jaws of defeat to the sweet sound of victory. All due to the hillbillies that live in what we commonly call Southern OHIO.

So that silly statement, "The State of Ohio" can make it happen no matter what the elected local school boards say, is just huff-and-puff non-sense. I noticed you have 96 on your name. Does that mean the year you graduated H.S. If so, that's 11 years out of school....and understandable if your insight isn't keen on the politics of Southern Ohio. My friend, politics trumps what a few Liberals in Columbus might think is good for the rest in Southern Ohio. This is not the early to mid 60's with public H.S.'s that have 12-20 students and in buildings that were falling apart. Not to say all were like that, but most were. The political map has changed and the way we think about securing and holding the communities together with there local school districts. Like I stated, Politics have swung in this area too. Remember most of the State is still Republican and they have supported Home School, Charter Schools, Vouchers and Local Schools, over The (BIG LIBERAL MINORITY), ideal, I know what's best for the majority. The State has a Southern Ohio Conservative Democrat Governor who faithfully served as a Congressmen in Southern Ohio prior to being elected to Governor. Before that, he worked at the Lucasville Prison as a Psychologist and taught at Shawnee State. He is also a fellow clergy, United Methodist Minister from Southern Ohio. I don't see him walking on this land-mine, no time soon. If it were so, why haven't they closed and consolidated Portsmouth Clay, Glenwood New Boston, Franlin Gree Township, South Webster? All I might add from Governors Stricklands Home Turf, Scioto County.

He knows to well the politics of Southern Ohio and her people. The State Legislature and Senate is still Republican. Most Local state-wide offices are Repuublican. So go ahead and think that places like Ros County Schools will consolidate like Bman wants, who I might add is from Cirvcleville, it just is not going to happen any time soon. Especially as I explained, Ross County has a secure Tax Base that supports her county schools and they all have new schools. Right after those districts voted yes for a levy to make sure they have new schools. Local Tax Payers Money. That's the problem with knuckle-brain liberals.....they want to dictate to the masses when they are actually in the minority. They always think Bigger is Better concerning Education. Sorry this is not true.

NYBuckeye96, think about this, if it was so important, why hasn't so many of your State Reps and State Senators down here in Southern Ohio, pushed this idea? Likewise Governor Strickland a Southern Ohio politican who was born and raised and lived down here. Instead they, your local elected State Reps, Senators and U.S. Congressmen, were the ones that pushed for new schools and school additions being built for those present schools that Bman would want to see consolidated.

Again Bman,
Worry about Circleville and your own County. Who cares what you think about Ross County, Because Huntington-Ross and Paint Valley have new schools and new buildings. There here to stay my friend. This you can think the local elected school boards with visions to make there schools better and a KUDOS especially to those local tax payers who voted for the tax levy's to pass. Thus, in conclusion, the local State Reps, Senators and U.S. Congressmen who helped in everyway they could to make sure these schools got all the necessary funds needed to build the new schools and added buildings and renovations, with new gyms, etc, etc, etc. Hmmmm...I wonder how that helped them on there re-election campaigns? If West Pointers can attend Classes in 200 year old plus buildings that keep getting rentivated and are stable what? We can not do the same for our schools? I understand if the foundation goes out or the land underneath the building goes bad. Likewise the B-52's that were built in 1950 and on, are still flying, continuiously being re-fitted. Isn't our schools able to do the same? Oxford attending classes in buildings that were built in the 1600's, Harvard is another example. With the right levy's and expansion with renovations these schools can last and continue. But no........there again, the minority, states, Johnny so and so got a new school down the road we want one too. But then, the Tax Payers say what...? We just voted an increase in our taxes last year to help renovate. I think Southern Ohio will continue to keep her schools, even New Boston, due to this being a political land mine today.

Yes....Politics from the very (local-level) does have an impact on the (State of Ohio) my friend, ESPECIALLY concerning Local School Districts in Southern Ohio.

ARMY

Hey you don't have to scald people like there children. I graduated in 97 and I know the politics of this area to. you have to remember that athens county is about 85-95% democrat The state school board can and will do what they feel is best. They control the money. You know all these nice schools that are being built check where the grant came from. Local taxesdon't make up much of the total. I don't think the state will force consolidate but if they do only a few schools will be able to fight it.

[Orange and Brown]

Its not going to happen cause it is not a priorety anyway

[Army]

Its not going to happen cause it is not a priorety anyway

I agree....it's not happening anytime soon