Post date: Jul 21, 2013 3:23:14 PM

The district expects to eventually save at least $250,000 per year by operating three, rather than four, secondary schools. Annual state aid funding to the district has declined by 17% since 2008, so a reduction in future operating costs is a key component in the plan to keep class sizes low and student achievement high across the district.

Reducing School Transitions for Students

But the main driver in reconfiguring grades 9-12 is research showing that students are more successful when they have fewer school transitions over time. Consolidation of grades 9-12 into Bartlesville High School (while shifting Madison Middle School students to the Mid-High facility) reduces the minimum number of school transitions for a student from three to two as shown below:

A subcommittee of the district’s Long Range Facilities Planning Committee collected research articles and summaries on secondary school grade configurations. They summarized the results as being that while no particular grade configuration was highlighted as clearly superior, the body of research did show that students achieve better when they experience fewer school transitions over time.

The committee also analyzed data from the U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of the nation’s best high schools to identify the prevailing grade configurations. They also charted Oklahoma school district data from the Oklahoma State Department of Education such as API scores, ACT scores, dropout rates, and free/reduced lunch rates versus the number of transitions to identify trends. The results showed a distinct correlation between fewer transitions and higher academic performance.

You can listen to a radio interview with Tracye Caughell, who spearheaded the research subcommittee.

The following is a collection of online resources consulted by the subcommittee.

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Online Resources About Transitions and Grade Configuration