What schools do you think should or eventually will consolidate?

Nobody has brought up the possibility that all this corona virus stuff could lead to more students staying at home and less students in school. This would lead to less "need" for the schools. I think this could be huge.

We also have to consider geography. The smallest high school and school district in Ohio is Kelleys Island. That is one of those islands in Lake Erie. That can not realistically be consolidated with anything.

I do agree that the number of high schools in Ohio is absolutely absurd though. I also don't think kids should be on the bus for more than 45 minutes one way. West Virginia went to a county plan years ago. I don't know why more states haven't done this. Lots of people don't even know what school district in which they live.
 
Library55 said:
Fewer baptisms. High cost of tuition and higher property taxes in general will force many families to forgo sending their kids to Catholic schools. These are a few of the reasons, among others, that I see as a reason for consolidation in the future.
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Catholic schools have already went way down since the 1960's. Tuition has went up because there are less nuns teaching and more lay teachers. I had a nun who once told us that she got paid a salary of $50 per month.

Bellaire Saint John's is definitely in trouble if not dead by now. Other Catholic high schools have also lost students.
 
algernonsidney said:
Catholic schools have already went way down since the 1960's. Tuition has went up because there are less nuns teaching and more lay teachers. I had a nun who once told us that she got paid a salary of $50 per month.

Bellaire Saint John's is definitely in trouble if not dead by now. Other Catholic high schools have also lost students.
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Bellaire St. John Central HS closed at the end of last school year. Based on what I've read, there is a school operating in the building now under the very similar name of St. John Central Academy, but it is not the same school. The new school is a non-denominational Christian school.
 
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I'd like to see all public schools within 5 miles of one another have state forced consolidation. Eventually the state will have to implement this in some form. This would tremendously cut cost. Have you seen how much mula some of these admins are making?
 
I believe I read recently that the Dayton Public Schools spends WAY more money per student than do the little public schools littering Auglaize, Shelby, Mercer counties, etc.

Bigger districts do not save money. They just find bigger ways to waste it.
 
pup pounder said:
I'd like to see all public schools within 5 miles of one another have state forced consolidation. Eventually the state will have to implement this in some form. This would tremendously cut cost. Have you seen how much mula some of these admins are making?
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In this scenario how do you handle multi high school districts?
 
Yea, huge districts like Dublin,Pickerington,Hilliard, ect. would have to consider the logistics. But look at Akron, they continue to consolidate. Canton has combined all their schools to save money. Schools in Texas, Georga, Cali have 5-6 thousand kids. Those are high schools. I'm just saying why not Ohio.
 
joelmama said:
Two basket case schools.. Sebring and West Branch. West Branch cant or wont support any tax issues and Sebring is down to graduating about 40-45 kids per year. Sebring population has settles down from 5K to about 4K and dropping. The schools are 2 miles apart. Sebring is entirely surrounded by West Branch. Both schools are losing population, money etc and it only makes sense. Now everyone that is in Sebring or Beloit will explain why something as common sense laden as this consolidation would be shouldn't happen. None of these will be good reasons but they will come up with them. I have heard people for years from Sebring say how great the education is there. I can tell you from experience it is a mess. It was a mess 50 years ago and ii is worse now. Look at the school rankings I think Sebring is in the bottom 10% of the state and they are fighting with districts like East Cleveland and the like at that bottom of the wrung.
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Consolidating two poor districts simply creates one larger, poor school district.
 
Arcadia and Vanlue refused to even look at studying the consolidation issue years ago. The per pupil valuation of the districts has a big disparity and the geographical area would make busing a two or two and a half hour ordeal for some students. Arcadia wants to stay separate for two main reasons. One, it keeps a team on their football schedule that they know they can regularly beat and two, the don't want to associate with those onion pickers in the 'Lue.
 
pup pounder said:
Yea, huge districts like Dublin,Pickerington,Hilliard, ect. would have to consider the logistics. But look at Akron, they continue to consolidate. Canton has combined all their schools to save money. Schools in Texas, Georga, Cali have 5-6 thousand kids. Those are high schools. I'm just saying why not Ohio.
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Dublin, Pickerington and Hilliard are areas experiencing growth. Akron and Canton are both in decline. There’s your answer why the suburban Columbus districts need not consolidate.
 
Akron only needs at most 4 high schools. North, South, East and West. But instead they built or refurbished all high schools except North. And closed Kenmore and Garfield to combine them . Still leaves Buchtel, Ellet, East, Firestone, Garfield-Kenmore( to become new school Garfield), and North. Too many schools for size of district which is losing students.
Garfield becomes new South
Ellet and East becomes new East
Buchtel and Firestone becomes new West
North stays North ( picking up additional students on East, Firestone border)
 
HighSchoolFB45 said:
Not trying to change the subject of the thread, but that is a big reason why you see football powerhouses in other states like Texas, Ohio doesn’t have ginormous schools like Allen and Lake Travis. They are mostly divided. Heck, Allen High School is the same size as if you combined Centerville, the largest high school in Ohio, and Northmont, another decently large D1 school.
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Allen has 6,959 students, 9-12. Centerville only has 2,772 that I could find online. It would take just over 2.5 Centerville schools to equal Allen. And Allen just added almost 300 students the last two year cycle (6664 to 6959).

Their band alone has over 850 members. Here's them from 2013:
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The Dock said:
Dublin, Pickerington and Hilliard are areas experiencing growth. Akron and Canton are both in decline. There’s your answer why the suburban Columbus districts need not consolidate.
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I've seen someone throw out there a while back, that Dublin and Hilliard should consolidate, and possibly include Olentangy. I don't see that happening, but Dublin and Hilliard do collaborate from time to time.
 
How about most of the small schools in northwest and southeast ohio start the consolidating. its only a matter of time. to my knowledge that is where most of the smallest districts are.
 
Champ Kind said:
Arcadia and Vanlue refused to even look at studying the consolidation issue years ago. The per pupil valuation of the districts has a big disparity and the geographical area would make busing a two or two and a half hour ordeal for some students. Arcadia wants to stay separate for two main reasons. One, it keeps a team on their football schedule that they know they can regularly beat and two, the don't want to associate with those onion pickers in the 'Lue.
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There's gonna come a time when Vanlue HAS to. No way it makes sense to continue to operate a district with less than 10 students is a couple of grades. Then it's just a question of where they go. If not Arcadia, where? New Riegel? Carey? Riverdale?

Imagine sending the Lue kids to Findlay lol.
 
dhsdog06 said:
There's gonna come a time when Vanlue HAS to. No way it makes sense to continue to operate a district with less than 10 students is a couple of grades. Then it's just a question of where they go. If not Arcadia, where? New Riegel? Carey? Riverdale?

Imagine sending the Lue kids to Findlay lol.
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I'm not a fan of merging across county lines but out of those you listed, Carey probably makes the most sense. If those 2 don't merge, then I'd see Arcadia merge with Van Buren. I actually would de-merge Riverdale and Give Mount Blanchard to Arlington, Forest to Hardin Northern, and Warton to Carey or Upper Sandusky. Maybe I'm the only weird one that thinks that way.
 
dhsdog06 said:
There's gonna come a time when Vanlue HAS to. No way it makes sense to continue to operate a district with less than 10 students is a couple of grades. Then it's just a question of where they go. If not Arcadia, where? New Riegel? Carey? Riverdale?

Imagine sending the Lue kids to Findlay lol.
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I agree they will have to sometime the the voters just approved a new tax so I won't be until they run out of money. If it wasn't for all the open enrollment kids Arcadia gets from Fostoria they would be begging to consolidate with Vanlue.

My suggestion with Vanlue is split it up with some of the territory going to Arcadia, Carey, Riverdale and Findlay. BTW there are a number of Lue kids that open enroll to Findlay.
 
CC Track Fan said:
I agree they will have to sometime the the voters just approved a new tax so I won't be until they run out of money. If it wasn't for all the open enrollment kids Arcadia gets from Fostoria they would be begging to consolidate with Vanlue.

My suggestion with Vanlue is split it up with some of the territory going to Arcadia, Carey, Riverdale and Findlay. BTW there are a number of Lue kids that open enroll to Findlay.
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Arcadia has been getting those open enrollment kids since the early '90s. I don't see that changing. Since their per pupil expenditure is so low (as is most of the Hancock, Mercer, and Putnam County schools), why is consolidation necessary?
 
As someone already mentioned I think as long as some of these school districts can operate financially without any real cause for concern then there is no real need to consolidate. The thing is none of these districts in NW Ohio are currently even in Fiscal Caution let alone "watch" or "emergency". Delphos City was just placed on Caution recently.
 
Champ Kind said:
Arcadia has been getting those open enrollment kids since the early '90s. I don't see that changing. Since their per pupil expenditure is so low (as is most of the Hancock, Mercer, and Putnam County schools), why is consolidation necessary?
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I agree the only way those open enrollment kids would stop is if the state put an end to open enrollment which I don't see happening. I said in my post that Vanlue will not consolidate until financially have to.

I don't believe anyone is saying the consolidation is necessary. This discussion is just speculation/thoughts to fill the void left by no sports. Nobody on here will have any input on what the schools actual do and most acknowledge that these speculations will not happen.
 
pup pounder said:
Yea, huge districts like Dublin,Pickerington,Hilliard, ect. would have to consider the logistics. But look at Akron, they continue to consolidate. Canton has combined all their schools to save money. Schools in Texas, Georga, Cali have 5-6 thousand kids. Those are high schools. I'm just saying why not Ohio.
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You make a very good point but you took the question a different way than I meant it. So let me try again because I would like to hear your thoughts. How do you handle multi school districts in regards to the 5 mile rule with other districts. So what happens if HS A is closer than 5 miles to a school in one district and HS B is closer than 5 miles to a school in a completely different district? Do you combine all three and make one massive district?
 
doubtme said:
How about most of the small schools in northwest and southeast ohio start the consolidating. its only a matter of time. to my knowledge that is where most of the smallest districts are.
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Yeah some probably should but a lot of small schools in SEO have new schools
 
Chop Stix said:
In the Cincinnati area:

-Lockland consolidates with Princeton

-St Bernard-Elmwood Place consolidates with CPS

-New Miami consolidates with Hamilton

-North College Hill consolidates with Mount Healthy
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New Miami I have always felt should consolidate with Edgewood, hell their neighbor down the road Seven Mile is already part of the Edgewood schools district.

Lockland makes sense, but maybe with Reading or Wyoming instead of Princeton.
 
I know someone who graduated from Sebring last year, said the graduating class was 29. I can’t imagine they can stay open for much longer. Same with Lowellville, although I think L-Ville is mostly still open because of open enrollment from Youngstown.
joelmama said:
Two basket case schools.. Sebring and West Branch. West Branch cant or wont support any tax issues and Sebring is down to graduating about 40-45 kids per year. Sebring population has settles down from 5K to about 4K and dropping. The schools are 2 miles apart. Sebring is entirely surrounded by West Branch. Both schools are losing population, money etc and it only makes sense. Now everyone that is in Sebring or Beloit will explain why something as common sense laden as this consolidation would be shouldn't happen. None of these will be good reasons but they will come up with them. I have heard people for years from Sebring say how great the education is there. I can tell you from experience it is a mess. It was a mess 50 years ago and ii is worse now. Look at the school rankings I think Sebring is in the bottom 10% of the state and they are fighting with districts like East Cleveland and the like at that bottom of the wrung.
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SpringfieldTigersFan456 said:
I know someone who graduated from Sebring last year, said the graduating class was 29. I can’t imagine they can stay open for much longer. Same with Lowellville, although I think L-Ville is mostly still open because of open enrollment from Youngstown.
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Lowellville has been graduating around 40 students for roughly 80-90 years. When my mom graduated from there ages ago her class had about 42.
 
CedarBuck92 said:
You make a very good point but you took the question a different way than I meant it. So let me try again because I would like to hear your thoughts. How do you handle multi school districts in regards to the 5 mile rule with other districts. So what happens if HS A is closer than 5 miles to a school in one district and HS B is closer than 5 miles to a school in a completely different district? Do you combine all three and make one massive district?
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Consolidate some of the multiple school districts where it's logistically/financially advantageous. The"5 mile rule" was just a generalization. All I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with creating a 5/6 thousand student highschool. If this can save us all money I'm all for it. Remember the townships in Ohio were originally divided up into approximately 35 square mile chunks to later be taken in by incorporation as cities grew. No one realized that people would flee in mass out of the cities. A perfect example of this would be Jackson township in stark county.
In the 70s they were a hick community of around 10 thousand,now their approaching 60. So there will be huge school's eventually as these townships continue to grow. Another aspect of all this is as cities grew through annexation their school district boundaries did not. To me this is just stupid. You have 20 sq mile cities with 8 sq mile school districts.
So yes I believe that should be changed for sure, and very large schools should be created, especially were it makes fiscal sense.
 
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