School Size
Observations on School Size, The Number of Students Enrolled
On several occasions, the question was asked, “How does the size of our local public schools compare to other private and charter schools in our area?” One approach to examine this question is to compare the recent financial, enrollment and staff information of four local private schools and four Santa Clara County Office of Education (SSCOE) chartered schools.
The most recent financial information, in a consistent format, is the 2017-18 IRS Form 990’s filled by each of these eight organizations. Partial enrollment data for the same school year was available from the California Department of Education (CDE) data base and the SCCOE charter data book.
This note is focused on just one observation from this analysis, the relative size of each campus serving the enrolled students. As the graph below illustrates:
The four private school campuses are generally smaller than the four charter school campuses.
The private school campuses top out in the 400 to 500 enrollment range.
The charter school campuses top out in the 500 to 600 student range with two exceptions:
The charter serving high school students enrolls 600 to 700 students.
The largest charter school (Bullis or BCS) enrolled just under 900 students with a goal to serve over 1,000 students on a single site. Although BCS is currently located on two campuses, their strongly emphasized goal is to serve over 1,000 students on one campus.
One observation is that the BCS goal of one large campus seems to be on a different path than the other schools reviewed.
This led to another question, “What is typical in the state of California?” California has over six million K-12 students enrolled in over 11,000 schools. The distribution of enrollment across the grade levels is reasonably consistent, generally between 450,000 and 500,000 students in each grade level.
The average number of students enrolled is 580 per school.
The lower grade level, elementary students are served on smaller campuses, approximately 500 students per campus. (557 in public elementary schools and 411 in charter elementary schools)
The middle school/junior-high level average campus is serving 720 students. (757 in public elementary schools and 409 in charter schools)
The CDE data base has data for public K-8 schools which indicated the average campus size was 492.
The average campus at the high school level is serving 1,170 students. (1,314 in public high schools and 484 in charter high schools)
There is another smaller category of students served in K-12 schools, which average 700 students per campus (697 in public K-12 and 708 in charter K-12)
Statewide data is consistent with hundreds of studies which found that students who attend small schools outperform those in large schools on every academic measure from grades to test scores. They are less likely to dropout and more likely to attend college. Small schools also build strong communities.
How does our local public-school situation compare to other private and charter schools in our area and statewide averages? As the graphs below indicate, the BCS goal of serving over 1,000 K-8 students on a single campus is inconsistent with other local private schools, SCCOE chartered schools, statewide norms and the existing local campuses.
Why does BCS want to have over 1,000 K-8 students on a single campus?
There may be several schools of thought on potential advantages, and disadvantages, of serving a large number of students age 5 to 14, on a common campus. For example:
Potential Benefits of a 1,000 student K-8 campus
Vertical alignment for continuity of curriculum.
Human Capital Efficiency
Share resources (music or special education teacher traveling among campuses)
Less administrative staff
Family and student comfort from a familiar facility and community
Potential Detriments of a 1,000 student K-8 campus
Volume of students on campus
Students may not be recognized by name
Family members may not be recognized by name
Sense of order/calm vs intensity
Safety at drop-off and pick-up times
Safety from staff recognizing unknown walk-ons
Traditionally, the field of education has practiced a deliberate progression of cognitive and social development as students become older. For example, students aged 12 to 14 are frequently experiencing a transition period in which peers become very important.
The original BCS charter petition clearly articulates the advantages of a small campus
Potential leverage (in lawsuits or negotiation) of a large enrollment
A large student body requires more facilities
Diverse age groups may mandate extra facilities space for older (7-8) students
A large student body may force closing a neighborhood school