Conemaugh Township Area School District - Enrollment

Enrollment

The district's enrollment is in the bottom 8% in Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, there are fewer than 950 students enrolled in K-12. The administrative infrastructure and mandate related costs per pupil are very high. With limited local taxation resources, opportunities for students are limited.

Consolidation with an adjacent school district would achieve substantial cost savings. These savings could be redirected to improving lagging student achievement, to enriching the academic programs or to reducing property taxes. In 1994, a consolidation study was conducted at the request of district officials.

A study was done in 2004, examining consolidating school administrations of Conemaugh Township Area School District with neighboring: Shade-Central City School District saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for both communities, with North Star School District saving nearly one million dollars or with Richland School District saving over $1,000,000. The study noted that consolidation could significantly decrease administrative costs for both communities while improving offerings to students.

Rural Pennsylvania school enrollment is projected to decrease 8 percent by 2011. The most significant enrollment decline is projected to be in western Pennsylvania, where rural school districts may have a 16 percent decline. More than 40 percent of elementary schools and more than 60 percent of secondary schools in western Pennsylvania are projected to experience significant enrollment decreases (15 percent or greater).

Pennsylvania has one of the highest numbers of school districts in the nation. In Pennsylvania, 80% of the school districts serve student populations under 5,000, and 40% serve less than 2,000. Less than 95 of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts have enrollment below 1250 students, in 2007. This results in excessive school administration bureaucracy and not enough course diversity. In a survey of 88 superintendents of small districts, 42% of the 49 respondents stated that they thought consolidation would save money without closing any schools.