April 5, 2007

By Diane Chiddister

What is the optimal number of students in Yellow Springs schools? How has the decline in Yellow Springs population over the past several decades affected the quality of local education and the health of the schools?

Many villagers raised these questions during the recent debate around the proposed annexation of the Fogg farm, which has now been withdrawn, following the farm’s sale last week. Many who supported the annex said they did so because the schools need more children; some who opposed the annex said they agreed that the schools need more children, but believe that the undeveloped land inside the village could provide space for a sufficient number of new homes.

While the Fogg farm debate is over for now, the same questions and concerns remain as villagers continue to examine issues of growth and quality of life in the village.

Since its population peak in 1970, the overall population of Yellow Springs has declined about 12 percent (excluding Antioch College students), according to U.S. Census reports. While the number of adults over age 25 has increased 17 percent over that period, the largest drop has been in the number of children. According to Census figures, in 2000 there were 136 children under 5 in Yellow Springs compared to 286 children under 5 in 1970.

The high point of local school enrollment was about 1,100 in the mid-1970s, according to Yellow Springs High School Principal John Gudgel, whose 1975 graduating class was one of the largest ever, he said. Beyond that, there are no easily accessible figures as to Yellow Springs schools enrollment figures in the 1980s, 1970s or earlier, according to District Superintendent Tony Armocida, who said that the school population had stayed largely the same, around 700, during his 10 years on the job. Currently, the schools have about 680 students, with 562 of those children from Yellow Springs and 124 open enrollment students.

Optimal number: 100 more
But 1,100 students for the school district now would be too many, given current facilities and programs, according to Armocida in a presentation to the school board in February. At that time he identified 780, or about 100 new students, as the optimum number of students in Yellow Springs schools.

According to a written report by Armocida, that number would “provide a quality education while maximizing the capacity of our facilities and maintaining a quality program.”

The optimal number of 780 students is significantly fewer than the recommendation for 900 students that he made two years ago, Armocida wrote. Contributing to this revised number is the cost of special programs which the local school district has incurred and “the need for intervention staff to serve an increasing special needs population,” according to the written report. Armocida also cited the increased cost of health care for school teachers and staff, the lack of growth in the local tax base and the need for increased space for special needs students as other factors which contributed to the lower optimal number.

Of course, more students would also require more resources, and Armocida estimated that 100 new students would cost the district about $160,000 in additional salary and benefits if the schools returned to a student/teacher ratio of 24 to 1. However, if the school district maintains its current student/teacher ratio of about 20 to 1, the increased enrollment would necessitate costs of about $290,000 in salaries and benefits. Given the schools’ current deficit spending of about $600,000 annually, the district would need an additional $760,000 or $890,000 to provide for the new students, depending on the student/teacher ratio, according to the report.

The new students would also create revenue for the schools, of course, although that revenue would not come from increased state funding. Yellow Springs currently receives about 16 percent of its overall funding, or $1,074,351, from the state, and that amount would not increase with the addition of 100 new students, Armocida said.

The new revenues from 100 new students would be generated from property taxes from new homes and the schools’ 1 percent income tax on new residents. In his written report, Armocida estimated that it would take about 300 new homes to provide 100 new students, or about one student in every third home. Because the schools receive about $2,000 for each average size Yellow Springs home, Armocida estimated the schools would receive about $600,000 yearly in property taxes.

He also estimated the schools would receive about $150,000 in property taxes, or about $750,000 total. Consequently, he said, the income from the new students would largely cover both the current school deficit and the staffing needs of 100 new students.

The ratio of one child per three new homes pretty accurately matches the ratio of new children to new homes in the past year in Yellow Springs, according to realtor Bambi Williams. Of the about 60 homes sold since the beginning of 2006, about 20 included one or more children, she said.

That ratio of child to home is fairly recent, according to realtor Chris Kristenson, who said that before recent years she remembers a higher ratio of children to new homes, and roughly guessed that every other new homebuyer had a child or children. But in recent years, most homes in the local market have been fairly upscale, according to Kristensen, who said if there were more modestly priced new homes for sale, more homebuyers would likely be families with children.

Williams questioned the assumption that 300 new homes, or any new homes, would be needed to gain 100 new children. In her experience as a realtor, most people who move to Yellow Springs want to live close to downtown, she said, so that they can walk to town or the library. With new plans to build senior housing on the Barr property, as announced last week, more homes already in the village will open up so that new people, some with families, can move in, she said.

Effects of fewer children
The local children affected most dramatically by the drop in student numbers may have been the middle school students, who lost a building.

When Pam Conine began teaching at the Morgan Middle School in 1979, the students enjoyed their environment in the open classrooms at the modern building, she said. But the declining student population of the 1980s prompted the district to move the middle school students to a much smaller module connected to the high school. The Morgan building, located on the corner of East Enon and Dayton–Yellow Springs Road, is currently the location of the Greene County Educational Services Center.

“We moved from a self-contained wonderful open space school to a trailer,” Conine said in an interview last week.

The most significant effect was on the morale of both middle school students and teachers, according to Conine, who said that they felt a keen loss of identity with the loss of their building. The new module was referred to as the high school “annex,” which seemed to imply that the middle school had a diminished status.

“For years the staff at McKinney was digging out from the reputation of being a second-rate holding tank,” she said. “Our reputation suffered undeservedly.”

While the effort has taken several years, the middle school has found its way, according to Conine, who is team leader for what is now called the McKinney Middle School, after former superintendent Ed McKinney.

Getting a new name helped students and teachers feel a sense of identity, Conine said. And though the effort has taken years, a dedicated group of teachers has fashioned a new and even stronger identity, Conine said

“I feel we offer a stronger program now than we ever have, certainly since we moved over from Morgan,” she said.

The smaller number of students means that each young person receives more individual attention, Conine said. However, the school does need a “critical mass” of students in order to function well, and the current number provides that amount, but could not go much lower. Programming decisions remain “challenging,” she said, and demand creativity on the part of the school’s administrators.

The McKinney School currently has 113 seventh and eighth graders, and has fluctuated from a high of 150 to a low of 98 students, Conine said.

At Yellow Springs High School, class size has declined from a high of 70 to 80 in the mid-1970s to an average of about 50 today, according to YSHS Principal John Gudgel, who has worked at the school for 27 years as either teacher, counselor or principal. The decline in the student population over the past several decades has translated into fewer class offerings and a less diverse student body, he said.

When he first began working at the high school, it offered several electives which are no longer available, such as German and black history, Gudgel said. And while the school now offers a few computer design courses that it previously lacked, the overall number of class offerings is smaller, he said.

In the annual News supplement on graduating seniors, the students each year repeat the themes that while they appreciate the individual attention they receive in a small school, they wish they had more course offerings, Gudgel said.

“They’re valid concerns,” he said.

In the past five years, more juniors and seniors have chosen to take classes at local colleges and universities through the Post Secondary Education Option, or PSEO, program, according to Gudgel, who said that option makes up to some extent for the less varied class offerings.

But the smaller student population also means a less diverse student body. When he began teaching in 1980, about 28 to 30 percent of the student body was African American, compared to the current percentage of 13 to 15 percent African American students, Gudgel said. And while the number of mixed race students at YSHS, about 13 to 14 percent of the student body, brings the total number of students of color up to the previous level, mixed race students were not counted as a category in earlier years, so the total number of students of color was likely higher.

“There was a noticeable difference in the 70s and 80s,” he said.

The declining diversity in the student body has had the additional effect of making it more difficult to attract teachers of color to the high school, Gudgel said.

Asked to identify what he would consider the ideal number of students given current facilities and resources, Gudgel said he would choose 60 to 70 students per class.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com