The Impact of School Consolidation
Abbie Toy
Introduction
Many people do not understand the immense effect a school system has on its rural community until it is too late. Communities need to be aware of the negative impact that school consolidation has on students, teachers, and community members. Rural and small communities are impacted significantly when the doors of their local schools are closed due to consolidation. Life in small towns often revolves around student activities, school affiliated sports events, and educational opportunities. The reasons behind school consolidation recently have been budget cuts and other financial worries. When it comes to education, our focus has to turn from money and center on the students.
I began by asking I wonder what would happen if there was a safe place for individuals to share their thoughts and opinions on the effects of school consolidation. School consolidation must be discussed, debated, and researched in order to ensure the accurate decision is made. I wanted to use some of the Web 2.0 tools that I was introduced to while earning my Master’s degree at Full Sail University in Florida. Our world is constantly changing and the way we communicate is becoming more sophisticated, so educators must be fluid and flexible enough to keep up with these changes. I wanted to find an interactive tool that would allow me to offer up-to-date news on consolidation, share contact information for local government officials, and make use of an interactive feature for discussion between members. My purpose is to demonstrate how I am improving my practice as an educator as well as how I can contribute to the body of literature on the effects of school consolidation on students, teachers, and communities. At this point, there is little research showing concrete results of studies being done in this area.
This could not only make a difference in my life, but the lives of students in my community. I did not expect just how emotional this topic would be for me. As the school where I currently teach faces consolidation, it is important to me to expose the negative aspects of consolidation for students. The students in our rural school are extremely important to me and as I read about the consequences they will face during consolidation, my heart breaks for them. I want everyone to know that students often feel lost when moved to a larger school and sometimes lose interest in performing academically. Other negative affects for students include high dropout rates, decreased achievement, increased violence, decreased relationship bonds with teachers and staff, and longer transportation times.
Consolidation affects communities negatively by forcing community members to move in search of employment, harming the well-being of local business owners, removing the center of activity, and threatening the very survival of the town. Often the communities end up falling apart completely. The advantages of small schools seem to outweigh any argument presented for consolidated schools.
The more research I look at, the stronger I feel that school consolidation would be a disastrous choice for the education program in Indiana. I hope that my ability to combine my research with the Web 2.0 tools I’ve been learning about will open people’s eyes to the importance of this issue and force government officials to do more research before carrying out school consolidations.
Literature Review
Using current research, I have written a literature review about the effects of school consolidation on students, schools, and communities. While writing my literature review I found that communities, students, and schools are all negatively impacted by school consolidation. Possibly the greatest casualty in the school consolidation battle is student achievement. When students from small communities are moved to unfamiliar, larger schools, the results are often negative in nature. Small schools find pride in a low number of absences, a high graduation rate, and little to no violent or disruptive behavior. This is accredited to the family-like feel of small schools. Students from small schools revel in the fact that everyone knows their name, they have one-on-one time to create relationships with teachers, and feel comfortable in asking questions or seeking help. Help and encouragement abound in this type of environment.
Rural and small communities are impacted significantly when the doors of their local schools are closed due to consolidation. Life in small towns often revolves around student activities, school affiliated sports events, and educational opportunities. It is not only the faculty and students who are affected by a school closing, but also families, small businesses, school boards, and homeowners. As school consolidation becomes more popular, communities are rallying around their small schools in order to save themselves. I’ve found that educators and community members believe that small schools offer a significant beneficial impact on students, teachers, and the community. Research indicates that the disadvantages of school consolidation outweigh the positive aspects.
Methodology
I have created a Ning site where educators can share their thoughts and opinions on school consolidation. This has allowed me to discuss consolidation with several different educators and community members and conclude that they have seen the effects of consolidation and do not support it. I used several different strategies to obtain data on school consolidation.
I chose to get involved with Ning.com because it is a place where teachers can interact and share. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that teachers need to be able to share their feelings and thoughts about school consolidation on a site where they will not be judged or criticized. Instead of me standing in front of an audience presenting information, I want teachers to be able to share ideas and support each other.
The data I collected was gained through a mixed approach. My first step in setting up my interactive Ning.com site was to send out an email to approximately 50 teachers and staff members outlining my plan. After completing this step, the only thing to do was wait. To my surprise, only 4 people joined my website, so I did not have much data to analyze. I created a quiz on SurveyMonkey.com, which would qualify as quantitative data. The survey collected responses to questions about whether or not school consolidation would negatively impact students, teachers, staff, and the community. It also asked participants if they knew how to contact their state governor, and if they had ever done so. It is surprising to find that a very limited number of individuals have ever expressed their concerns with their local government officials. Feelings and opinions are easily expressed among peers, but withheld from the individuals who need to hear it the most.
I also collected quantitative data by creating an online petition on signappnow.com. It asked adults to sign if they agreed that school consolidation should be stopped in Indiana.
The last two types of data I collected were qualitative. I created a video, which I posted on my Ning site, that displayed several teachers and staff members at my school discussing why they think school consolidation would negatively impact the students, themselves as teachers, or the community. I was able to watch the teachers as they spoke about consolidation, noting their facial expressions and tone of voice. I also created several discussion posts on the Ning site, where I will be able to read responses and gauge members’ feelings on consolidation.
Results
After sending out a large number of emails to coworkers and friends, I was extremely surprised to find that only 4 teachers signed up to be a part of my Ning Social Network! Some staff from my workplace even emailed me to tell me how great of an idea it was, but never joined the site. I am a bit confused by this. One deterrent (in my opinion) is that you have to “sign up” to be able to participate. Teachers feel strapped for time as it is, and do not want to take the time to fill in information about themselves for the site. I believe that if the site were something that you could just jump on when you had a free minute and explore, more people would be open to trying it. Ning has also recently begun charging for their service, which will discourage individuals from signing up.
I also made some adjustments to my site in order to attract more visitors. I began to utilize the chat option when navigating the site. Instead of just keeping track of how many members I have on the site, I am managing the site more (checking for latest activity, interacting with members, staying online for longer periods of time, etc.) I am graphing my results and still trying to pull in more members.
Because of the disappointing results at the beginning (only 4 members), I began to think of different ways to get the word out about my Ning site. I decided to use Web 2.0 tools to connect with people and get their thoughts and feelings on school consolidation. Instead of relying on email I began using new and upcoming Internet tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger to get the word out about my new website. I began to have a much higher response, which in turn helped me with the data collecting I described above. I now have more survey responses, more signatures for the petition, and multiple replies to my discussion posts. After hearing from Ning members, I know now that I’m not the only person who does not agree with school consolidation!
Conclusion
Small school systems are facing the threat of closure based on budget cuts in each state. Although community members, teachers, staff, and parents of small schools are opposed to this idea, they don’t know what action to take. I have decided to use an interactive web-based community where members can discuss the latest updates on consolidation news, find contact information for local governors, and express their opinions in a safe and supportive environment. After looking at dozens of sites, I decided that Ning.com fit my needs effectively. Setting up the website was easy, but convincing individuals to sign up for the service and participate was the hard part. I found that many community members in our rural town were intimidated by technology and hesitant to try something new. Although many people expressed strong opinions against school consolidation, my site failed to become the “community” I had imagined.
I started out by trying to obtain members through an email explaining my purpose, but quickly found that Web 2.0 tools would be more useful in connecting more people to my new site. I really thought that more teachers and staff members from the school I teach in would respond positively to signing up for my website. Because of the rural nature of our school and community, I think that people were not comfortable going to this unknown site and creating an account.
Personal Learning Environments (PLE’s) have been important during my research because I have examined many different learning environments in order to choose the correct site to use for my project. I chose a Ning.com site because of how open and flexible it is. Each member is able to customize their page in order to fit with their needs, which is what a personal learning environment is all about! It is also important for the administrator (me, in this case) to be able to use online content delivery in order to teach members how to contact the Indiana governor and post important information about school consolidation.
If the goal of education is to foster the best possible environments for learning and success, school consolidation should not be an option for our communities. School consolidation, although suggested for valid reasons, diminishes environments that are proven to help students become successful graduates, citizens, and employees. There are two major groups of people that are damaged when school consolidation is carried out: communities and students. We can no longer sit back and allow our small schools to disappear. It is our responsibility as teachers, parents, and community members to speak up and save our schools for the students’ sake!
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