Josh Newton
December 20, 2006 10:24 am
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“Funding is a problem, and we can’t provide all the services that larger schools can,” said Skelly School Elementary Superintendent Paul Thompson.
After eight years at Skelly, Mr. Thompson knows the small school, located just outside Cherokee County in Adair County, faces obstacles larger schools may never have. But a quick look at the blessings of his campus makes the superintendent very proud of his students and staff.
Skelly School - home of the Road Runners - sets just east of State Highway 10 on Chewey Road, its district boundaries running into Cherokee County just enough to count. And, for area families, the school’s location is extremely important - the nearest “big” schools are Kansas, about 10 miles north and west, and Westville, about 18 miles south and east.
“Funding is a problem as the number of kids fluctuates,” said Thompson. “Staff is 80 to 85 percent of the cost to run a school, so when funding is lower, naturally you have to trim staff. Fortunately, we [the state] have a number of people retiring earlier. They don’t want to work full-time, but we can put them to work part-time.”
In this way, rural schools are able to keep fantastic educators in the classrooms, even if it is just a few days a week, according to Thompson.
“Little schools like this can benefit from people that are available from retirement,” he said. “Two or three little schools can share.”
Skelly currently boasts a student population of 106 - two- to three-times less than most Cherokee County rural schools - ranging from pre-kindergarten up to eighth grade. That is, however, a jump in enrollment from the previous school year.
Students also face slightly different arrangements than they would at a larger school: fifth- and sixth-grade students share one teacher the majority of a school day, as do seventh- and eighth-grade students. Third- and fourth-grade students have also been combined at one point.
“But with 21 students combined in fifth and sixth grade, and 12 students combined for seventh and eighth grade, it wouldn’t be feasible to separate them,” said Thompson.
Such arrangements do allow for several positives outlooks.
“The kids are getting better one-on-one attention with teachers,” he said. “The kids are happy. We haven’t had one fist-fight in eight years. The kids take great care of things.”
Other rural school around the nation aren’t faring as well as Skelly is. Once part of thousands of smaller schools, many are dipping so low in student numbers, they are being forced to close the doors, sending students and parents to neighboring school districts.
In Nebraska and Montana rural schools are a major part of the education system’s foundation, according to the Associated Press. But that hasn’t stopped a number of them from shutting down.
According to the AP, approximately 100 such schools have closed in Montana during the past 10 years, and it’s not getting any better for schools.
“The rate of decrease has accelerated,” Montana Small Schools Alliance Director Claudette Morton told AP.
The Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools believes education through public schools is paramount to the health and wealth of the U.S. The first goal of OROS is to “oppose legislation mandating consolidation or combining of administrative units based on number of students, number of districts, and/or size (square miles) of a district,” according to www.orosok.org.
“Most communities want their schools to succeed and therefore are very supportive,” said OROS President Bruce Lawless.
According to the OROS Web site, several Cherokee County schools belong to the organization, including Briggs, Grand View, Norwood, Peggs and Woodall.
Lawless said rural schools in the western part of Oklahoma, on average, are decreasing in student population, while those in eastern Oklahoma are increasing. Some small schools, he said, have an administrator who must multi-task between transportation, federal programs, cafeteria work, personnel issues and budgets; furthermore, lack of substantial equipment provides more problems.
“Lack of facilities such as science and computer labs, physical education facilities, smaller operating budgets and lack of bonding capacity are major issues,” said Lawless.
But Mike Bilby’s 350-student population at Grand View Public School seems to have everything children could need at a school, with access to programs larger schools have: Band, choir, sports programs and classroom programs.
“I like the size,” said Bilby, Grand View superintendent. “I get to know the kids a lot more - get to know them on a more personal level, give them a pat on the back and call them by name.”
Bilby said when it comes to small-school disadvantages compared with larger schools, he’s not sure there are.
“I don’t think I have any, whenever I stop and think about it,” said Bilby.
Bilby pointed out other states that consolidated smaller schools into larger populations now seem to be facing problems, and are being forced to turn back and re-arrange districts - dealing with 10,000 students as individuals, said Bilby, can likely be a problem.
When Wenfan Yan, Ph.D., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, released a comparison report of rural school districts in September, his results may have proved consolidation of rural schools had no advantage.
“...Rural countywide school districts had much larger total district expenditures than the other types of districts [in Pennsylvania],” Yan wrote.
“If ‘economies of scale’ exist, the expenditures per-pupil for rural countywide school districts should be less than those from the other types of non-countywide school districts. The results of this study, however, did not find any statistical differences ... in their per-pupil expenditures. To merge small rural school districts in Pennsylvania on the basis of cost efficiency, therefore, is not supported by this study.”
Other states, meanwhile, continue to test the waters and conduct studies to weigh the cost of closing small schools verses saving administrative funds by combining schools.
And for local schools like Skelly, the economy plays an important part of whether or not the campus will decline, grow, or be stagnant.
“We fluctuate,” said Mr. Thompson. “There’s no industry and very little housing [in Chewey]. Schools like Briggs and Keys, their enrollment is going up because a lot of people are living there, and housing is available.”
The bottom line is simple for some educators like Thompson: If the state takes away small schools, communities will suffer.
“Communities would lose their identity. In most rural areas, the school is the hub of activity,” said Lawless.
Thompson confirmed these beliefs.
“This school is the center of the community,” said Thompson, pointing to acre upon acre of golden fields to the west, a church just across the street, and a small convenience store just to the east.
“If you take this school out, what’s left?”
Learn more
To learn more about the Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools, visit its Web site at www.orosok.org.
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