The Garden City Telegram
Email this story | Add Your Comment
| Read (0) Comments
High school options, solutions debate continue
Published 10/30/2007 in News : Education By Emily Behlmann
Administrators from USD 457 Garden City think it's more educationally sound to have two high schools than a new, big one, Superintendent Rick Atha told the Board of Education Monday night.
The board has begun wrestling with the two options as part of a solution to what administrators have called an overcrowded high school. Both were recommended by a study group that examined 10 options for dealing with high school issues, and both would require a bond issue for an undetermined amount.
Atha said a new, large high school (for up to 2,250) or two smaller ones (for about half that amount) both met many criteria the board determined at the beginning of their process. They provide the opportunity to give every teacher a classroom, lower class size, eliminate mobile classrooms, enhance safety and provide adequate space for programs, he said.
However, maintaining one large school doesn't take into consideration research on school size, Atha said. Research varies on optimal school size, but in the American School Board Journal, researcher Susan Black refers to studies that cite the ideal upper limit for high schools as 900 students.
Atha said the administrators just looked at an educational perspective when considering their preference. Cost and which the public would support didn't come into play, he said.
"I understand why you as a board have to take that into consideration," he said.
Board members Mike Utz, John Scheopner and Bruce Reichmuth all have said they favor two high schools.
However, boad members George Hopkins, Tom Blackburn and Jeff Crist said they see benefit in a single, new high school. Crist said he thinks the plan has a critical component the two-high-school plan lacks -- community support.
In 1998 and 2000, voters defeated USD 457 bond issues to build a second high school.
"Ultimately, what's best for kids is that we get more facility space in whatever way it comes," he said.
Also at Monday's meeting Garden City High School Principal James Mireles reported that figures show a slight increase in drop-out rates recently, though he said the numbers can be misleading.
For the previous year, the state formula set GCHS's drop-out rate at 4.4 percent, according to the Kansas State Board of Education. It has been increasing from a low in 2003-04 of 2.97 percent, according to the school district.
Dropout rates are calculated using dropouts reported for the year for grades 7 through 12 and dividing by the total enrollment for the year for the same grades, according to the state. Dropout rates are a one-year indicator of students who left school.
Mireles said the 2003-04 school year was when the district adopted a policy of automatically dropping students who were absent 10 days in a row, so the district wouldn't have to count the absent students' test scores when reporting to the state. That naturally increased drop-outs, he said.
In addition, students who decide to go to the district's Bison adult education center, or to get GEDs from Garden City Community College, are counted as drop-outs.
Mireles said the high school is trying to step up efforts to decrease drop-outs. Credit-recovery programs, including night school, summer school and the Compass computer program, help students catch up, he said.
The school also has mentoring programs for freshmen and seniors to keep them on track, he said. In addition, when students under 18 say they're dropping out, they must first conference with and obtain signatures from the principal, councelor and a parent.
Found 0 comment(s)!
Twitter Updates
