More Schools Closing
|  Video
|
| Brandi Powell |
| 5/20/2008 |
 |
| In addition to the Bisbee school closing, we told you last week about the Stanton school is closing as well. These closings aren`t a surprise. The Department of Public Instruction says it`s caused by a steady shift in population trends. 26 school districts have shut down in the last 5 years. The Department says there are 450 public school buildings across North Dakota. It says half of all students enrolled are in the eight largest school districts in the state. The other half are scattered around in the other 180 districts. The Department says they`re working to find ways to make sure kids in rural areas still get a top-notch education. People are moving from farms to urban centers. They`re getting older, and families in small towns are having fewer children. The Department of Public Instruction says they`ve all contributed to a big reduction in rural school enrollment. "We need to find ways if we`re going to keep schools open in many of those communities to collaborate more, to share more services," says Tom Decker with the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. DPI says it`s too expensive to do otherwise, especially with a steady decline since 1994. "The best solution would be to find a way to continue to provide educational services in every community," says Decker. Decker says the problem is that could be costly. "In a normal school population, if you expected to graduate on a regular basis 100 students from high school, you would want to see 115-120 students kids coming into first grade," says Becker. But that`s not happening in the rural districts or even in the larger urban districts. Only one thing may change that. "Unless we have an influx of families coming in because of the economic development in town, the energy industry, the ag industry, Bismarck being the capital city. If the city continues to grow for those reasons and we get families coming in here, the only way our enrollment will increase is if actual new families move into town," says Paul Johnson, Superintendent of Bismarck Schools. If that doesn`t happen, some schools are looking at enrollment declines of about one-third over the next nine to twelve years. Decker says DPI is exploring several ideas to make sure rural students have the same educational opportunities as urban students. One idea is to have rural students travel to larger schools twice a week. |
© 2009 KMOT-TV
Home | News | Weather | Sports | Webcast | Morning News | Programming | Primetime Rewind | Advertising & Sales | About Us
Community Connection | Movies | Contests & Promotions | Search | Links | Contact Us | Site Map | Follow us on: Facebook
Sister Stations: KFYR TV in Bismarck, KUMV in Williston, KQCD in Dickinson
