South Kingstown Public Schools

Organizational Options to Address Declining Enrollment

December, 2004

Prepared for the South Kingstown School Committee

By Robert Hicks, School Superintendent

As the School Committee has heard during our discussions of both the budget and enrollment projections, the school district is facing significant decision points regarding both the budget and housing its students. We anticipate a budget gap of, at this time, approximately $2 million that must be made up either in expense reductions, revenue increases, or a combination thereof. Our declining enrollment places pressure on the district to recoup savings commensurate with enrollment. To do this we must generate efficiencies in how we are organized or look to other programs for savings. Additionally, the state fiscal situation and school finance priorities are clear in telling us that we should not expect state revenues to grow at current expense rates. Consequently, we must look for additional efficiencies to generate savings that compensate for losses in the share of the budget provided through state aid.

One of the issues these environmental impacts cause us to examine is our school organization. Budget shortfalls and enrollment declines bring our organizational efficiency under a microscope. Below is a review of the options I have identified for consideration. There may be others. I recommend the School Committee review these options and engage in a process of public dialogue regarding them. At that time, I will make a recommendation on which the School Committee can act. Beyond this analysis, the district can engage a third party to conduct a similar analysis. NESDEC, the group that does our enrollment projections, is one organization specializing in this work, although it will have to be specified and bid should this be a desired route.

Organizational Options

1. Keep things as they are now - 5 elementary schools and 2 middle schools.

This option will keep the school system looking as it does now to the community. We will be in the process of shrinking the four smaller elementary schools from 3 classes per grade to 2 classes per grade. The drawbacks to this option are that, (a) unless we continuously redistrict students, we will get less efficient and less equitable in class sizes among the elementary schools, and (b) it will be increasingly difficult to find team structures that work with our middle school enrollment numbers, so organizations, schedules, and other components of the middle schools will continuously shift. The middle school alternative to the shifting team structures will be having generally small and disparate middle grade class sizes at the expense of program elsewhere in the district. As can be seen from the table below, the enrollment in each of these grade combinations will decrease by 23% from 2001-02 to 2008-09. We will struggle with both efficiency and equity if we attempt to keep things the same in the face of these changes.

	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09
K-5	1856	1742	1713	1622	1532	1477	1462	1419
6-8	1094	1125	1067	1036	977	951	888	840
TOTAL	2950	2867	2780	2658	2509	2428	2350	2259

2. Keep our grade structure (K-5, 6-8) and adjust organization.

We can keep the basic grade structure we have in place by adjusting organization and capacity. For example, by closing an elementary school we can reduce capacity and improve efficiency allowing the system to look similar to the way it does now. This will be most difficult to do in the middle grades. To explain, middle schools organize students into teams. We can organize students into 4 or 5 member teams in grades 7 and 8 (6th grade can also have 3-member teams). Four-member teams efficiently run between 85 and 100 students (class sizes between 21 and 25), with a range of 105 to 125 for 5-member teams. It would be unwise to plan on class sizes of 27, the current contractual cap, since that leaves the district without options should additional students enter. The table below shows the projected enrollments for grades 6, 7 and 8 divided into two schools. As can be seen, enrollments consistently fall in the “range to be avoided” indicating potential organizational problems.

	6	1/2	7	1/2	8	1/2
2006	296	148	337	169	318	159
2007	259	130	300	150	329	165
2008	285	143	262	131	293	147
2009	263	132	288	144	256	128
4 member teams		85-100		5 member teams		108-125
For 2 teams		170-200		For 2 teams		216-250
Range to avoid		125-170

One middle grade solution would be to create one large and one small middle school. In effect, we’d be collapsing from 4 teams per grade to 3 teams per grade. In transition, we would have, in 7^th and 8^th grade, both 4 and 5 member teams, which would require adjustments to the middle school schedules. The table below illustrates some team combinations in a large school/small school model and the capacity of each grade in that configuration.

	Teams	Capacity	Teams	Capacity	Teams	Capacity
Small School	4	100	5	125	5	125
Large School	4, 4	200	4, 4	200	5, 5	250
	13	300	14	325	15	375

One offshoot of this option would be to reorganize Curtis Corner Middle School as a K-8 school, incorporating the population from South Road for grades K-5 and adding additional elementary students in grade 6 to become the “smaller” of the two middle schools in grades 6-8. This would make efficient use of the facility and add the potential benefits of a K-8 building. K-8 models in districts such as Brookline, MA, have demonstrated effectiveness not only with elementary students, but in using an elementary community environment to avoid the disconnection some students face in middle school years. It would also, however, create two very different structures for our students, and, while K-8 organizations have proven effective, such dramatic change can be difficult as the prospect of kindergarten and eighth grade students in same building would be very different than the current organization. Such a change would also require modifications to Curtis Corner to prepare it to accept elementary students.

Still another way to reorganize our middle schools would be to create teams with more than one grade level. By combining grades, numbers in the “range to avoid” could be bypassed. For example, a four-member team would be constructed of two sections each of 7^th and 8^th grade students. This also provides the option of “looping” students, or keeping them on a team for more than one year, as the two 7^th grade sections in one year become the two 8^th grade sections in the next year. This does create some curricular issues, as it is more difficult to create team-wide activities or units specific to one grade’s curriculum and increases the planning responsibilities of teachers. An example of how a multi-grade team structure would work at one middle school over the next few years is below.

	7^th graders	8^th graders	7 only team	8 only team	multi team - 7	multi team - 8	multi-team total
2006	147	150	100	100	47	50	97
2007	145	147	100	100	45	47	92
2008	132	145	90	100	42	45	87

3. Move 5^th grade to the middle schools and reduce elementary capacity.

Moving 5^th grade up to the middle schools to create the 5-8 organization common to many districts would keep the middle schools reasonably close to their operational capacity. It would require additional closure of elementary capacity as the enrollment drop would be exacerbated by removing one grade. This would not address the organizational issues in the middle schools, as we would still have numbers of students in each grade that are difficult to organize into teams. The table below shows what our populations would be moving forward in this organizational model.

	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
K-4	1243	1224	1184	1162	1154
5-8	1286	1024	1166	1097	1052
TOTAL	2529	2248	2350	2259	2206

4. Move 6^th grade to the elementary schools and collapse to one middle school.

Beginning in 2008-2009 each of our middle schools would be able to accommodate the entirely of our grades 7 and 8 enrollment. At that time, we would also have the capacity to return sixth grade to the elementary schools, effectively reverting to the organization in effect before BRMS opened with the exception that the grade 7-8 school would continue to operate as a middle school. Referring to the analysis of team structure capacities above, in 2008-09 the combined 7-8 middle school could organize with three, 4-member teams in each grade. The table below shows enrollments under this organization.

	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
K-6	1865	1773	1721	1704	1662
7-8	664	655	629	555	544
TOTAL	2529	2428	2350	2259	2206

This creates the obvious dilemma that we would than have a surplus middle school having just opened one seven years before. We would still face class size equity and efficiency issues in elementary schools as the number of students in each grade would not change. Maintaining efficiency and equity would still require a review of student assignment, although our middle school issues would be resolved as combining students of each grade in a single site would allow current team configurations to continue. Additionally, organizations during the transitional period between now and 2008-09 would still face the same problems.

A derivative of this option would address the surplus middle school issue and ease the elementary school organizational problems. South Road and Wakefield Elementary Schools could be consolidated into Curtis Corner as a larger school serving a larger neighborhood. Little capacity would be lost and we would gain efficiency from the larger school size. This would leave the district with four elementary schools, two large (Peace Dale and Curtis Corner) and two small (West Kingstown and Matunuck). Each of the four schools would then have approximately the same enrollment as it has today. It would also close our two oldest and smallest elementary schools. The downside of this model is that it closes two traditional neighborhood schools and replaces them with a single, larger school. Smaller schools can be more closely connected with their neighborhood and students. The table below illustrates the possible enrollment design for each building in that organizational model and the projected enrollment for that year.

	K	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	TOTAL
BRMS								300	300	600
CCES	80	90	90	90	100	100	100			650
PDES	80	90