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.