The Garden City Telegram
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Tale of two schools
Published 12/15/2007 in Local News : Education
Editor's note: This is the second in a two-part series examining how other Kansas school districts have dealt with overcrowding at their high schools. Today's story will look at districts that have added a second high school.
By EMILY BEHLMANN
ebehlmann@gctelegram.com
Everyone else is doing it.
At least that's the way it seems in the suburbs of Wichita, where smaller high schools are becoming all the rage -- even if it means dividing the population of a single high school into two rival buildings.
School districts in Maize and Goddard both passed bond issues this year to alleviate crowding by becoming two-high-school towns, following in the footsteps of the nearby Andover district that opened Andover Central High School in 2001. Salina, Lawrence, De Soto and Olathe also have made the same move over the years.
"When others around you are doing the same kind of thing, it's a much easier process to sell than in a community such as Garden City," Maize interim superintendent Milt Pippenger said.
Pippenger would know. As superintendent at Garden City USD 457 from 1993 to 2003, he watched as voters rejected two bond issues -- one in 1998 and one in 2000 -- that would have added a second high school to Garden City.
The enrollment at the high school hasn't changed much since Pippenger's time here. There were 1,902 students in 1998 and there are 1,906 this year.
The still-crowded classrooms and hallways are prompting the USD 457 Board of Education to give the issue another look, with hopes of placing a bond issue on the ballot by the November 2008 election. As they debate between recommendations to add a second high school or to replace GCHS with a larger school, board members are looking to peers for guidance.
Growth, opportunities
The first reason administrators and board members cite for adding a high school is an enrollment so large that one school barely contains it.
"Growth, plain and simple," was the cause of Olathe USD 233's decision to add Olathe South High School in 1981, said Lowell Ghosey, executive director of secondary personnel and services. The Johnson County district, with an enrollment of more than 25,000 this year, now has four high schools.
High numbers and anticipated further increases pressured Andover USD 385 into action, as well, said its school board president Nancy Kirkendoll.
"Our high school was becoming very, very crowded," she said of the situation in the late 1990s. "We had to either add on or go to another building."
Educational research, especially from Wichita State University, helped with the decision, and prompted a general district policy that when a high school hits 900 students, they build another. Research showed that school size does make a difference when it comes to student involvement, achievement, behavior and graduation rate, Kirkendoll said.
Andy Tompkins, dean at Pittsburg State University's College of Education and former Kansas Commissioner of Education, would agree with Andover's conclusion. He said students have twice as many opportunities to participate in activities, and they have more personal connections with staff.
Tompkins has experience in a two-high-school community. He started as superintendent at Salina USD 305 in 1987, about 17 years after the district opened its second high school.
"The benefits were more personal attention, fewer invisible kids and more participation," he said. "It's a hard decision for a community when you're used to one. You really have to get to a point when you think it's best for the kids if you split it."
Convincing voters
Securing the support of educators to add a second high school is one thing, but convincing the voters who will pay to build it is quite another.
It was a divisive issue in Lawrence, Superintendent Randy Weseman said.
"People, for very good reasons, were glued at the hip to one high school," he said. "It was where they went to school, where their kids went to school. ... Our high school had a great reputation for excellence in academics and extracurriculars -- the winningest football team in the state. Those are things people are proud of."
Lawrence voters rejected previous attempts before a $25 million bond issue in 1994 resulted in the addition of Free State High School, which opened 10 years ago.
It wasn't such a challenge getting voters on board in some other communities.
Ghosey said people generally were supportive of the idea in Olathe, though they wanted to ensure there would be equity between schools.
Community meetings revealed that support was strong in Andover, too, despite some concern over rivalry between the schools, Superintendent Mark Evans said. A rivalry does exist, but it's a healthy one, he said. The game between Andover and Andover Central is a fun one.
"I spend one half on one side, and the other half on the other side," he said.
Maize's $59.8 million bond issue -- to convert a middle school into a high school, plus add a middle school and an elementary -- passed easily in April, with about 65 percent of the vote. Pippenger said the community was looking to the opportunity to have two different-sized high schools, so they'd have a choice.
Then comes the hard part
As challenging as it might be to get a bond issue passed, it's the easy part of a high school split, said Pippenger, who arrived in Maize shortly after the April election.
He's entrenched in the hard part now -- the decisions about where to draw boundaries, whether to allow student choice between the two, and which staff will go where.
Staffing is the worst of those steps, Weseman said. He was assistant superintendent at the time of the split, and had to oversee the process.
"I don't ever want to do that again," he said.
Some staff had to be added, too, though teachers mostly were split among the two Lawrence schools, Weseman said. Staffing costs increased by about 20 percent, and facilities operational costs also went up, he said.
Would it work here?
Some of those who have survived the shift to two high schools say the only way it worked for them is because they talked to the community.
"Listen and talk about what's going on," Kirkendoll said. "That's essential to me."
USD 457 did that ahead of its first two attempts at bond elections, according to Pippenger. He said he can't think of anything he would have done differently.
Board members are attempting to talk to the public again this year as they try to decide between two high schools or one. Board members and a committee of district staff and residents have held several public meetings and conducted a survey in The Garden City Telegram. A phone survey is coming in January.
Pippenger, in the middle of a two-school transition in Maize, knows what he would recommend.
"I think what's best for kids is smaller," he said. "I wouldn't have gone for two bonds out there if I didn't believe that."
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