Paulding is the county seat, biggest village, centrally located, and built their school back when they were a D3 football school. 99.9% sure they'd get any consolidated school.
What are some Ohio School Districts that should be consolidated? What are some Ohio School Districts that should consider adding another High School?
- Thread starter footballsalads43
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Paulding is the county seat, biggest village, centrally located, and built their school back when they were a D3 football school. 99.9% sure they'd get any consolidated school.
I'm not 100% sure but it wouldn't surprise me at all out there. Hamler, Malinta, and Grelton are tiny. Deshler is SLIGHTLY bigger, but certainly not big. I couldn't imagine more than 1 or 2 of them having high schools in the old days.
It was very similar in Paulding County with Wayne Trace, although again I'm not certain who was K-8 and who was K-12. I know Payne had a high school and played football. Then there was Grover Hill and Blue Creek who MAY have, but I'm not certain.
Sykotyk
Well-known member
Pauling County has 18,648 people. Paulding has 3,414.
Jay County has 20,416 while Portland has 5,992.
That's what I was referencing. Of course every county will have a central point, and you can point out whatever village or hamlet nearest the center as 'central'.
Jay County has one community outside Portland that even has fast food. The county is very centralized when it comes to commerce and community. There is no real place elsewhere in the county that, other than just having "Ravenna Southeast" type situation where a school is just placed in a vacant parcel of land in a corner of the county, there isn't a good place anywhere for another school.
Paulding County doesn't even have a sixth of the population in the 'center' town of the county. Sure, Wayne Trace is kinda out there by itself, but Antwerp is probably not in a position of any of the small dots in Jay County to see consolidation as neccessary.
simkon
Well-known member
The first public High School in Mahoning County was in Canfield, it was also the county seat at the time before it was moved to Youngstown. Rayen was the first public High School in Youngstown however....
I just realized at the time Canfield was part of Trumbull County as Mahoning County didn't exist until 1846, the county seat was moved in 1875 and the moving of the seat was decided by 1 vote, the tie broken by the speaker of the house. Canfield appealed it and won but Youngstown had already been the new County seat for like 10-15 years at this point and grew so substantially due to the steel mills that they refused to give it back.
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simkon
Well-known member
My brother lived in Carbondale for around 5 or 6 years, it was a very nice little town, have no idea what the school situation was...
Where’d you get the 175 number? I get how economies of scale work, but sending kids as far as your plan would just doesn’t make sense to me.
Sykotyk
Well-known member
Saw a game at Santa Fe Trail in 2021:
Unfortunately, the football team wasn't doing so well. But Hayden Catholic from nearby Topeka was pretty good.
To my knowledge all the schools that created Wayne Trace had grades 9-12.
Paulding County is the same way. Should we call it the Subway metric? If your community can’t support and doesn’t have Subway, you can’t be a high school. Flawed logic.Pauling County has 18,648 people. Paulding has 3,414.
Jay County has 20,416 while Portland has 5,992.
That's what I was referencing. Of course every county will have a central point, and you can point out whatever village or hamlet nearest the center as 'central'.
Jay County has one community outside Portland that even has fast food. The county is very centralized when it comes to commerce and community. There is no real place elsewhere in the county that, other than just having "Ravenna Southeast" type situation where a school is just placed in a vacant parcel of land in a corner of the county, there isn't a good place anywhere for another school.
Paulding County doesn't even have a sixth of the population in the 'center' town of the county. Sure, Wayne Trace is kinda out there by itself, but Antwerp is probably not in a position of any of the small dots in Jay County to see consolidation as neccessary.
If they would have had a second it would be like a Wayne Trace, probably situated in Dunkirk or Pennville on the western/southwestern side of the county.
No where in particular. Just a number that I put out there so the schools aren’t too big. But still offer a good amount of options for academics, sports, and arts.
The economic side would be saving on the amount of buildings would’ve been needed and the operating costs to go with that.
On the flip side, more buses would be needed and the drivers to go with that. I know there are more economics that goes into operating schools than just buildings and school buses. Just naming the basic two.
In the end, money would’ve been saved if had the state pushed for another round of school consolidations in the 90’s to make the schools in the 2000-2200 students k-12 range.
ShoelessJoe
Active member
Patrick Henry is a consolidation of Malinta, Hamler and Deshler. It was voted on to consolidate in 1966. Holgate was also included in that vote, but the Holgate School District voted it down. The first school year for PH was 1969-70. They maintained separate grade schools in the 3 towns for years, but now everything is located on the PHHS campus. As long as communities are willing fund their own schools, I have no problem with keeping them. For Holgate, I don't believe they have turned down a school levy in the last 50 years.
BigTenBuckeye
Member
My grandma and mom went to the same 1-8 school, which had four classrooms that housed two grades in each room. For high school, Grandma chose a neighboring (and separate) district and graduated in the late 30s. While my mom attended this 1-8 school in the 50s, they were notified that the district couldn't continue on its own without offering high school classes, so they requested becoming a part of the district Grandma went to. They were turned away, so they applied to join the district to the north and were accepted. This district had also taken in another 1-8 school the year before. Both of those 1-8 buildings continued as "neighborhood" elementary schools for a few decades.
I'd have to do some research to see what other districts near us did, but a lot of those consolidations happened around the same time in Wood County and the nearby counties in NW Ohio. I just don't know if those other districts were K/1-8 or if they actually had high school students too. But I've always wondered what prompted certain districts to go together.
CedarBuck92
Well-known member
Clark Shawnee had 3 elementary/middle schools that predated the HS by at least 30 years. HS was built in the 50's so this timeline makes sense for us. I've been told that most of the students from the west side of the district went to Northwestern or Greenon (likely the predecessors to the actual Greenon HS since it also opened in 1955) and most of the East side of the district went to Northeastern.
Caldwellbasketball
Member
When I started teaching at Caldwell 15 years ago we were a financial disaster and they talked of consolidating us and neighboring (7 miles away) Shenandoah for one county wide high school. It didn't happen and now both districts are in a very good financial position so I doubt it ever does. Both schools graduate between 60-75 total kids per year.
Very interesting. Thanks for the example!
Pauling County has 18,648 people. Paulding has 3,414.
Jay County has 20,416 while Portland has 5,992.
That's what I was referencing. Of course every county will have a central point, and you can point out whatever village or hamlet nearest the center as 'central'.
Jay County has one community outside Portland that even has fast food. The county is very centralized when it comes to commerce and community. There is no real place elsewhere in the county that, other than just having "Ravenna Southeast" type situation where a school is just placed in a vacant parcel of land in a corner of the county, there isn't a good place anywhere for another school.
Paulding County doesn't even have a sixth of the population in the 'center' town of the county. Sure, Wayne Trace is kinda out there by itself, but Antwerp is probably not in a position of any of the small dots in Jay County to see consolidation as neccessary.
Dunkirk in Jay County is bigger than Antwerp. Redkey is as big as Payne.
If fast food is a metric you're going by, the ONLY place in Paulding County with fast food is Paulding. Antwerp used to have a Subway but it's gone now. Paulding is the ONLY village in town with much at all going for it.
Obviously it's all on a smaller scale than Jay, but Paulding County especially as it continues to shrink could very easily consolidate into 1 district, put it at the current Paulding campus which when it was built was the biggest K-12 single campus in the state (obviously isn't close anymore), and be completely fine. All of the incorporated villages in the county are within 15 miles and it would work great. Just have to get Antwerp and Wayne Trace on board, which is unlikely without state intervention.
Sykotyk
Well-known member
Would, but would Antwerp and Wayne Trace actually do that? That's the biggest issue. I'd say Wayne Trace is less 'community based' compared to Antwerp. It covers a large territory in the south of the county and even the building itself is set away from any village of any size. If financially it became an issue that seems the most likely to begrudgingly agree to a merger.
Look at how many issues Switzerland of Ohio had trying to consolidate Beallsville into Monroe Central. And those two are in the same school district. Two different districts trying to combine is so much more problematic.
I'm just saying Jay County probably had far less roadblocks given that so much more of the county was centralized in the only real 'town' in the district dead center of the county. And it happened back in 1975. At a time when Ohio SHOULD HAVE been looking at consolidation. At least seeing the writing on the wall as all these 1940s-50s era buildings were coming due for replacement or major renovations in the 90s and early 00s. That's the time to build a new building and start fresh and new.
Bruce Monnin
Well-known member
Perhaps the better question is what Ohio schools are too large and where the students would be better served if they were broken up into smaller districts.
smurfyeah19
Well-known member
I think every D7 will need to be consolidated in the next 15 years. Ohio has lost too much population to other states. We’re going to have a lot of empty schools soon
footballsalads43
Well-known member
I think Lakota could open a 3rd high school. Mason has a lot of students as well, and I think they should’ve opened a 2nd high school awhile ago. Centerville I’ve always heard some rumors they might split into two, but that’s seemed to have died down.
As mentioned earlier Miami Trace covers a lot of space. I think a 3rd school district in Fayette County wouldn’t be a horrible idea once Honda gets going
Sykotyk
Well-known member
The HS I went to in PA graduated about 120 kids a year at the time. I liked that because you knew all the teachers, most knew you especially as you aged through the school and basically had all of them at some point. You knew pretty much everyone in your grade and would know many of the kids in the grade above or below you.
The school was 7-12 rather than just 9-12.
In OHSAA parlance, the school would have roughly a 180 enrollment #.
But logistically, it had drawbacks. Primarily in elective language classes. We only had two foreign languages we could learn: Spanish and German. They did have some AP classes and there was the county's Vo-Tech to take classes at. Extracurriculars, there was some drawbacks as well. No baseball/softball or soccer back then.
So somewhere between that size and maybe double that size is the sweet spot to me for school/class size. D1 sized schools, especially the top half of D1, just seems incomprehensible to me to be a student in a school graduating 500-1000 students a year.
So I do agree with you that most schools probably shouldn't be larger than D2 sized.
In NYC, they've done an interesting thing of turning their MASSIVE high school buildings into multiple high schools in the same building. If you see their teams listed as "Erasmus Hall Educational Campus", the co-op of the 5 small high schools that share the same building. Logistically, the schools are entirely separate other than them sharing hall/floor space. Different principals, educators, etc. Just one facility. And one combined athletics program.
But gives the feel of being part of a smaller high school for the students. And seems to be doing better than having huge monster high schools with thousands of students under one system.
Way back when Lakota was split into East and West it was announced that both schools could hold ten more years of projected growth and the third HS would be needed. It was even said the blueprints were already printed. That was almost thirty years ago. At the same time Fairfield and Mason voters voted to keep the one HS system.
I'll go with a couple schools that virtually no one knows of in central-ish Ohio. Walnut Township (Millersport) and Liberty Union (Thurston) should absolutely merge. The High Schools are 10 minutes apart. Millersport always has a levy on the ballot (which just passed by a mere 10 votes 307-297). Merging with Liberty Union may relieve some financial burden in terms of who they need to operate the district. Another one I'll throw out there is Licking Heights and Watkins Memorial. I wouldn't combine the schools, each district has built new schools within the last 10 years, but also faces extreme growth in the area. I would combine the districts. Make it one big district, the Pataskala Local School District. It would be interesting if a merger would alleviate financial stress that both districts face.
Maybe New Bremen, Minster, and Fort Loramie consolidate schools and be called “Miami-Erie Canal HS” with mascot name of “the Gongoozlers”
Lol
Shelbyrr11
Well-known member
I've done some long-term subbing at a school that graduates 50-60ish students per year. Having graduated from Shelby (150-160ish per year), there was a dramatic difference in upper level courses that were available. Much worse ability for a student at the smaller school to differentiate their academics with the resources available. It was not unusual for advanced juniors/seniors to have most of their courses be at a nearby college, or outright transfer to the larger school 20 minutes down the road to be able to take basic courses like physics. Quite a few students simply graduated a year early to get the whole thing over with.
Granted, a lot of these strategies by students were cost-efficient as far as getting college credits, but it did highlight the higher limits of what a small, rural school can accomplish.
Unrelated to that school, here's an example of consolidation that could work (no prognosticating on whether it actually DOES have any shot).
Plymouth: Grades 11/12 have under 20 kids once you factor in vocational/early college options. Otherwise, they are averaging 50 students per grade
Buckeye Central (New Washington): Trending towards 40 students per grade
Crestline: About 40 students per grade
Most of these schools already have some degree of flight towards Shelby, Willard, Galion, Ontario, & Colonel Crawford (North Robinson).
Depending on where you sit in the district, it's easy to have a 10 minute drive to any of the schools for the majority of relocated students (though the New Washington folks may have to buckle in for closer to 20 minutes).
Since this IS the football forum...
Plymouth: 36-63 in the past 10 years (in the weak Firelands Conference)
Buckeye Central: 19-77 (N10)
Crestline: 23-74 (NWCC or independent)
Granted, a lot of these strategies by students were cost-efficient as far as getting college credits, but it did highlight the higher limits of what a small, rural school can accomplish.
Unrelated to that school, here's an example of consolidation that could work (no prognosticating on whether it actually DOES have any shot).
Plymouth: Grades 11/12 have under 20 kids once you factor in vocational/early college options. Otherwise, they are averaging 50 students per grade
Buckeye Central (New Washington): Trending towards 40 students per grade
Crestline: About 40 students per grade
Most of these schools already have some degree of flight towards Shelby, Willard, Galion, Ontario, & Colonel Crawford (North Robinson).
Depending on where you sit in the district, it's easy to have a 10 minute drive to any of the schools for the majority of relocated students (though the New Washington folks may have to buckle in for closer to 20 minutes).
Since this IS the football forum...
Plymouth: 36-63 in the past 10 years (in the weak Firelands Conference)
Buckeye Central: 19-77 (N10)
Crestline: 23-74 (NWCC or independent)
Big Lex Fan
Well-known member
That was my thoughts about Crestline and Lucas . It's about facilities and access to more advanced educational opportunities. Lucas has had a rather successful run in football over the past 10-12 years. Also in boys basketball. But their buildings over 100 years old and I've heard that the state has told they need to build new buildings soon or they may be forced to consolidate. The residents do not support higher taxes.
Shelbyrr11
Well-known member
Yep. The educational opportunities are vastly different. Poor athletic facilities and programs are one thing, but poor academic facilities is the higher concern. I think the expansion of programs via OSU Mansfield Branch & Ashland University, etc. have done a fine job of taking in students with higher academic trajectories, but the point stands.
When I was at Shelby, we didn't have AP coursework, but we had the following courses that the small school I subbed at did not:
Physics
Advanced Bio
Anatomy & Physiology (1 & 2)
Calc 1
Calc 2
Honors English 1-4
World History (Adv.)
And that's ignoring the vocational accessibilities. Only speaking for Shelby, there's an entire wing of the school for classes that build skills in the trades. There's a barn for Ag students where animals can be kept.
I'd think this argument holds up for many of the rural Northwest Ohio schools when it comes to comparing a D6-D7 enrollment school against a D3-D4.
When I was at Shelby, we didn't have AP coursework, but we had the following courses that the small school I subbed at did not:
Physics
Advanced Bio
Anatomy & Physiology (1 & 2)
Calc 1
Calc 2
Honors English 1-4
World History (Adv.)
And that's ignoring the vocational accessibilities. Only speaking for Shelby, there's an entire wing of the school for classes that build skills in the trades. There's a barn for Ag students where animals can be kept.
I'd think this argument holds up for many of the rural Northwest Ohio schools when it comes to comparing a D6-D7 enrollment school against a D3-D4.
This.
Part of the success formula here in Mercer and Auglaize county is Wright State Lake Campus with Tri Star Career Compact across the street. Our area does not have a typical vocational school where kids go all day every day. Kids only go half days, going back to their home schools for electives. There are many star athletes who also take these vocational courses at Tri Star, they are still connected to their home school. Traditional vocational schools take these students out of the school and you lose that connection.
Wright State Lake offers 4 year degrees all completed in Celina for business, education, nursing and engineering, to name the big ones. Students can go to school and work at the same time. They are getting valuable work experience and only paying $3500 per semester!!!
The last I heard, the Lake Campus has 1600 students enrolled.
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Shelbyrr11
Well-known member
Richland County has a vocational school for juniors/seniors to enroll into that is located ~1 mile from Shelby HS (called Pioneer). It draws a lot of Shelby kids, but it pulls from multiple counties. You go to Pioneer during the day, and then you play sports for your school of origin. It did drive a wedge between that daily interaction with kids, but I do recall seeing some of my friends who went to Pioneer more than ones that stayed in Shelby by virtue of the academic curriculum/lunch periods we happened to be taking. The Pioneer kids on sports teams would still show up in the weight room when school let out.
The WSU Lake option is great, it sounds just like what OSU Mansfield and Ashland U is doing. I graduated when such programs were in their infancy, and none of my friends took them on. In today's world? Some would have. I ignored them since I was going way out of state for college, which makes my situation a niche anecdote.
I would add that despite all this, there is still value for the mid-sized schools in WBL, SBC, OCC, and MOAC land in regards to getting the ability to test your capabilities on certain subjects before pinning a college transcript on them. Shelby's Anatomy & Physiology 1-2 were notoriously difficult when I was there. It was often that students enrolled in them to experiment with the idea of heading into nursing/bio/medical as a profession. If you got whacked, oh well, at least it was done before enrolling in college. For some of those D6-D7 schools, that option is not present. It's not the end of the world, but the luxury of choice is nice.
I can’t see Centerville getting much larger than it is now. All the land south of Centerville is in Warren County as Springboro continues to grow.