Dive Brief:
- District Administration reports some school districts are reconfiguring grade levels as a means to save money and are seeing better academic achievement and heightened community involvement as a result.
- At Island Trees School District in New York, two K-4 elementary schools were transformed into one K-1 building and one serving grades 2 through 4; the district saved a reported half million dollars over five years.
- Snoqualmie Valley School District in Washington also reconfigured when faced with an increasing student population; the district added modular classrooms and created a freshman-only school instead of using a traditional middle school configuration; district admins say communication and transparency with parents and the community is crucial to success.
Dive Insight:
With various large school districts like Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit facing looming budget meltdowns, innovative strategies like reconfiguring grades might be worth a try. Philadelphia has considered cutting funding to charter schools for special education and virtual charter operators, and Chicago has considered laying off hundreds of teachers, though COS ultimately axed just 62 school staff positions.
In Detroit, an education reform proposal from Gov. Rick Snyder calls for cutting the Detroit school district, which has been under emergency state management for the last eight years, in half in order to create two districts. In November 2015, the Los Angeles Times reported private research commissioned by former Los Angeles Superintendent Ramon Cortines showed the L.A. Unified School District is “facing a looming, long-term deficit that could force the system into bankruptcy."
Innovation and creativity may help, and districts could look to the way some regions are sponsoring computer science to get ideas for larger revenue plans. As of 2014, more than 60 school districts committed to offering computer science, many of which entered into public-private partnerships and adopted collaborative and unique approaches to funding.