# School districts with no public highschools -- how prevalent? (US) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 3, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885 "2019-02-03T17:11:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/1 "2019-02-03T17:11:59Z")
While reading a Maine newspaper, we noticed an advertisement for [George Stevens Academy](https://www.georgestevensacademy.org/) in Blue Hill, ME: > [@](#): > > [GSA] has been providing secondary education to area students whose town have no public high schools[.] > […] > These “tuitioning” or “sending” towns provide tuition at rates established by Maine’s Department of Education It sound like some towns that are too small to run their own high schools use their public education funds to send kids to this school. While I’ve lived in some relatively rural areas and in small towns, I’ve never lived anywhere without public high schools. So I’m wondering how common a situation like this is. Googling districts without high schools and the like didn’t return anything useful. Obviously districting is handled differently state to state. A small town may not have its own high school, but might be in a larger school district that does. I’m specifically wondering about districts or departments (or counties/cities in states like Virginia that handle schooling at that level) that tax residents for schooling within their boundary, but do not make a high school available. I’m guessing we might see this is in areas with very low population density and in states where districts tend to be very small (I’ve lived in places with only one high school in the district). I know after school integration, some places in the south pulled some racist shenanigans with their school systems. Maybe there are some vestiges there. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/2 "2019-02-03T17:33:04Z")
Where I grew up (southern Marin County, CA), the elementary/middle school districts are still completely separate from the high school district (which has three schools). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/3 "2019-02-03T19:06:56Z")
Some local school districts in NY have only K-8. They’re usually designated as “common schools” and it look like there are ten of them in the state (though some might have K-12). I know that the Maplewood Common School District in Albany and the New Suffolk Common School district on Long Island have no high schools in the district. Maplewood is only a few miles from Albany and Troy, so it’s not particularly rural. it’s separate for historical reasons: there were many more common schools that have since consolidated, but they decided not to. However, most have an agreement with the nearest high school; the students go there. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/4 "2019-02-03T19:12:21Z")
You have to be clear what you’re talking about here. It’s not uncommon for there to be separate public elementary and high school districts. In those cases, the elementary districts do not have high schools. That doesn’t mean there are no public high schools: the public high schools belong to the high school district. Many school districts are called “unified”, and that means it includes both elementary and high schools. This area in Maine seems to be an area that actually doesn’t have any public high schools. That would be very unusual. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/5 "2019-02-03T20:35:21Z")
Where I grew up (eastern Washington state) there were a number of school districts that had no high schools. Most of them were dots on the map, but Union Gap, Wash. has 600 students for a town of 6000. They have the same policy with high schools, where students attend any high school they choose in the area. Don’t know how they split up property tax revenues. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/6 "2019-02-03T21:27:46Z")
Thanks for the clarifications about locations with separate districts for high schools. We truly do things differently state to state. But yes, I’m curious specifically about high school students that don’t live under a taxing public school jurisdiction that doesn’t itself provide a high school. Although it may turn out I’m still not asking that correctly. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/7 "2019-02-03T21:35:50Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > It sound like some towns that are too small to run their own high schools use their public education funds to send kids to this school. While I’ve lived in some relatively rural areas and in small towns, I’ve never lived anywhere without public high schools. So I’m wondering how common a situation like this is. It doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t any public schools in the area. [Ellsworth High school](http://ehs.ellsworthschools.org/) is about 20 minutes from Blue Hill. The website for School Union 93 says > [@](#): > > School Union 93 is the administrative organization for the public schools in the towns of Castine, Brooksville, Penobscot, Blue Hill and Surry. > > In the school union structure, each town has its own elected school board, budget, school and staff, while sharing a superintendent and central office staff. > [@](#): > > All the public schools in the five towns are preK-8 only. There is no public high school in Union 93, so each town “tuitions” students to state-approved high schools in the area or statewide. It would appear that the districts are not restricted to paying tuition at other public schools. The same thing happens with New Suffolk- the district pays for their students attend Southold Junior Senior High School, in the adjacent district for grades 7-12. ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/8 "2019-02-03T23:00:45Z")
I taught for many years in a high school in California. Our students came to us from 8 different elementary schools with complete independence from each other and from the high school district. The high school district was huge geographically. The elementary schools served small towns located within that area, and most of the towns were fairly distant from one another. Odd detail - when I first taught there, lots of students would board for the week in the town with the high school, and return to their own homes in the boonies for the weekend. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/9 "2019-02-03T23:07:15Z")
Sometimes it’s not up to the local community. I grew up in rural PA. At the time, the state was engaged in a program of forcing districts with small rural high schools to merge with surrounding school districts. Which the small district, and sometimes the larger one, usually fought like hell to prevent, usually to no avail. My high school was in one of the small towns that pulled from a large area by the time I graduated. There was a rule that students were not supposed to have to ride a school bus for more than an hour, or walk for more than some distance (1/2 mile, IIIRC) to reach a bus stop. The state merged some of those districts as far out as they could and try to claim that rule was being met. In the winter, it was a joke. At that, my high school graduating class was about 250, not large by city public school standards, even though some kids were getting pulled in from over 20 miles out on secondary and county roads. The PA districts were unified, so my district contained tons of elementary schools, though. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/10 "2019-02-03T23:21:31Z")
I read somewhere that there is or was a school district in NJ (I think) that has no schools at all. I guess maybe their schools closed so they send their kids to another district. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/11 "2019-02-03T23:59:25Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I read somewhere that there is or was a school district in NJ (I think) that has no schools at all. I guess maybe their schools closed so they send their kids to another district. I thought this was very odd- but a I found a couple of NYT articles, one about NJ and one about Scottsdale AZ. It seems that they aren’t districts that closed their own schools - it’s just that their taxes are lower if they have their own school district and pay tuition to other districts to educate their students than they would be if they merged with another district. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/12 "2019-02-04T00:11:32Z")
Where I live 1 public high school serves 2 fairly large villages which each have several elementary and middle school districts. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/13 "2019-02-04T03:23:56Z")
I found this on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_districts_in_Illinois). > [@](#): > > As of July 1, 2018, there were 852 public school districts: 368 elementary districts, 97 high school districts, 386 unit districts, and one Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice district. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/14 "2019-02-04T03:39:14Z")
In Calfornia before the public was sold on unified school districts The high school and the K-8 school districts could be different. When I grew up there were several different about 8 K-8 school districts feeding students into the one High School, which was a seperate district. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/15 "2019-02-04T05:17:36Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > Where I grew up (southern Marin County, CA), the elementary/middle school districts are still completely separate from the high school district (which has three schools). I remember driving through northern California in the early 90s, 101 on the way down and I-5 on the way up, and passing by dozens of towns that posted populations in the two digits, so Marin County was my first thought. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/16 "2019-02-04T06:32:42Z")
> [@sunstone](#): > > Odd detail - when I first taught there, lots of students would board for the week in the town with the high school, and return to their own homes in the boonies for the weekend. There are some public boarding schools aimed at Native American children in the western U.S. (and no, they are NOT the same as the prisons where children were incarcerated decades ago to “Americanize” them). They were for kids who lived so remotely, it was either this, homeschooling (not practical when you live in a hogan without electricity) or spending hours each day on a bus. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/17 "2019-02-04T07:56:29Z")
Ohio has two school districts that don’t operate any schools. Both are on islands in Lake Erie with very tiny populations, and they fly or (in the warmer months) ferry all their kids to another slightly larger island district. Likewise, that district, and another island district, fly all juniors and seniors to the mainland to attend a vocational school. ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/18 "2019-02-04T13:29:40Z")
[Here is a 2009 article about the elimination of non-operating New Jersey school districts.](https://www.state.nj.us/education/news/2009/0701nonops.htm) The non-operating school districts existed but did not have schools or students. Any students in the area were sent to other schools, with some money following the students. A new law at the time eliminated the non-operating school districts and forced them to merge with other school districts. I believe that this eliminated employees at the non-operating school district. Edit: it seems that after that, 13 non-operating school districts still existed. ---
**Author:** ![Hapax\_Legomenon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8c91f0/32.png) [@Hapax\_Legomenon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hapax_Legomenon)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/19 "2019-02-04T14:54:25Z")
Having trouble finding news articles on it, but I’m pretty sure Oregon eliminated K8-only districts in the mid-90s. Most districts merged; a few started new high schools (one of which I went to). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885/20 "2019-02-04T15:01:29Z")
Here in Texas, we have what are called “Independent” school districts (with one exception). What this means is that they’re independent entities that answer only to the state government w.r.t. education and taxation within their geographical boundaries, from kindergarten through 12th grade. So kind of by definition, you can’t really have a district without a high school here, even if the entire school district is like 200 students from K-12. Interestingly, we actually have weird stuff like Six-man Football, which is what schools too small to field an 11 man team play. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/school-districts-with-no-public-highschools-how-prevalent-us/828885.md?page=2)