The purpose of this study was to observe the manner in which a certain small rural elementary school was affected by being consolidated with several other small rural schools to form a consolidated unit f,or a given school district. This study was focused upon three areas. First, the study had particular regard for the comparison of reading achievement for a certain group of students both before and after consolidation. Secondly, there was a comparison of the attendance of the students before and after consolidation. Lastly, the opinion of the parents of these students was surveyed to determine their feelings regarding the consolidation. The study revealed the following: The data showed, first of all, that there was significant change in the area of reading achievement. Thus, it appeared that consolidation had brought some improvement in the area of reading achievement. In the second area of pupil attendance a slight improvement was noted. This may have been, perhaps, the result of the transportation system which implemented the consolidation. Thirdly, concerning the opinions of parents in relation to their consolidated school, the survey produced information which indicated that the parents of the school were happy with the consolidation. / M.S.

The purpose of this study is to determine if further school consolidation in Navarro County is desirable.

The problem of this study was to determine some of the effects of the centralization movement on the schools of Van Zandt County.

The writer in this study seeks to do two things: (1) to make clear the fundamental principles underlying the relation of the state and the local school officials to the school district in regard to school district consolidation, and (2) to reduce to a systematic organization the principles derived from cases which are applicable to this problem of consolidation of school districts.

The primary problem of this study is to investigate statistically the degree of social integration in a newly-consolidated rural high school formed from four previously existing high schools. The sociometric technique is to be used to determine the peer acceptance for the component parts of the school population, to find out, if possible, if the process of combining the four schools has created an atmosphere which is contributing to the more effective social adjustment of all the students.

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent of educational inequalities existing in the West Independent School District and the eight surrounding rural school districts, and to suggest changes that might improve educational opportunities for all children involved.

"Hidden Hills" is a secure, isolated enclave of 550 homes, with a long history of political and economic power wielded, in some cases, by families who have lived there for generations. This neighborhood serves as the bedroom for many of Portland's wealthy and well-known and has housed many of Oregon's-leading figures. It is faced with SB 917, a 1991 mandate to merge its only formal social institution, its 104-year-old school district, with one of two contiguous districts. Merger will not mean the immediate closure of the school, but will mean the loss of local administrative and political control and changes in the delivery of education and the arrangement of staff and students. The school will be run by another district in another community. This eighteen-month field study was undertaken in order to answer the questions: (a) How do neighborhood residents define this situation, and (b) What strategies will they devise to cope with the situation. I entered the community as a marginal participant and full observer. "Marginal" because, although I was the official recorder for both the school board's Consolidation Task Force (CTF) and High School Option Committee, I attended numerous other school and community meetings as a full spectator. I also conducted both formal and informal interviews and conversed casually with residents at every opportunity. Sources of secondary data were the 1990 Decennial Census: Multnomah County Elections Office: Oregon Department of Education; Oregon Historical Society Library; City of Portland Urban Services; Hidden Hills School District; and Multnomah County's Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission. The mandate to merge posed a threat to the neighborhood. The school is valued both for its educative and non-educative functions. It is a symbol of the neighborhood's integrity, part of which is its long history and body of tradition. It stands as testimony to the neighborhood's distinctiveness, which partially inheres in the institutionalization and the privatization of its school. It is the school that residents feel distinguishes this affluent neighborhood from other such neighborhoods. Its social cohesiveness and small-town atmosphere is perceived by residents as unique. There is a symbiosis between the school and the neighborhood that makes any threat to the school a threat to the neighborhood's identity. The rational response was mounted by the CTF, whose progress was halted at the point where neighborhood input was necessary but not forthcoming, due to what members perceived as denial. But residents were articulating a form of anticipatory grieving in the recurring reference to loss loss of identity, loss of local control, loss of the neighborhood school, and loss of academic excellence and small class-size. There was organized apathy among residents while they assimilated the fact that things this time were different. Initial impulses to make the old, formerly effective, forays "down to Salem" weren't working to gain exemption from the grip of the new law. It was time to form new lines of action based on a new definition of the situation. The CTF redefined the situation and did its work by identifying five options to consolidation. Residents were then brought together at neighborhood coffees where their subjective realities were negotiated within the constraints of the objective reality of the consolidation mandate. During these negotiations an intersubjective reality was realized where all residents, while having their own subjective meanings of the threat to the school and the neighborhood, were still able to articulate the objective fact that this was a threat to a core structure of meaning. Core values, beliefs, identity, and assumptions were brought into relief as residents re-defined the situation and discussed strategies to cope as a neighborhood, rather than as individuals. The CTF was given much-needed direction from neighbors.

The early twentieth century marked a period of intense efforts toward reform of the American educational system. Rural education was not excluded from these efforts. The most dramatic change in rural education during the period was the closure and consolidation of "ungraded," one-room schools into consolidated high schools. These efforts met with intense resistance, often with the fear that rural communities would be destroyed by such educational reforms. Scholars have written very little on this subject, and what they have written has viewed the reform efforts quite negatively. One Indiana county, Randolph County, was generally regarded as the model rural school system during the period. Lee L. Driver, the county superintendent of schools, led the consolidation efforts in Randolph County. In many ways a typical Indiana county superintendent, Driver helped to transform his county and eventually became regarded as one of the national experts in the rural school reform movement. As evidenced by the number of visitors to its schools and by the attention it received from both the popular press and the academic press, Randolph County was a national model for more than a decade. Consolidation's impact on minorities and women was uneven in this county. As other locations made similar progress, Randolph County's exceptionalism waned, though there is an enduring legacy both for Lee L. Driver and the county's system of schools in the present educational system of the area. / Department of Educational Leadership