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_ 14 An overview of much of the research .done between 1924 and 1974 on the size of schools and school districts is provided by a 6upwary of Re- sear ch.* Here as elsewhere, wide variations were shown whenever per pu- pil costs were factored in. Some educators consider that cost per pupil is more indicative of "community willingness to support, or *community demand' for, public educational services"** than it is a function of school size or quality. While much more research dealing with cost-size relationships was reported for high schools and school districts, it is useful to examine a 1973 finding by the Montgomery County, Maryland, Report of the Snail Schools Task Force *** in studying elementary school size in relation to expenses. The Task Force showed graphically that "as school size de- creases, per pupil costs gradually increase until the school size reaches 300-500. At that point cost per pupil increase sharply. . ." jhgg a in- creases in cost were mainly attributed to employee costs, professional as well as others. Looked at another way, the graph reproduced here, shows . . decreasina costs as enrollment increases. One conclusion of the Montgom- ery County study was that "a school with about 200 students will cost, fin• the average, 20% more per student than a school with 300 students, and 25% more than a school with 500-600e"**** - Of the seventy-five studies on high school size reported on in the Summary of Research, only twelve specifically dealt with cost factors. In the last twenty years., recommendations based on cost-size relation- ships varied from 'a low of 100 12th-graders (a figure developed by James Conant and adopted by a number of other educators) to a high of 2,000 for an entire senior high school. Rowitz and Sayres, in 1959, considered that 'a good cost-size relationship would exist in a four-year high school enrolling 688-756 students. (Their study was done for the New York State Education Department and entitled Cost and Educational g2pgrtoi ieg in Secondary Schools. Unfortunately, the vua�,lity of education does not seem to have been a factor -in this particular study.) In 1974, Jack Irvin Mal- cussen recommended a minimum of 750-850 students for an academic high .: •school. ' * The full name for this will be found in the Bibliography appended to this report. From hereon studies and authors may be found in the Biblio, raphy of the jwmgparyi ee n Alk Marvin rvxn C a s of qu ed in A a f R ea c p 15 TwT.� ��Y �� •F h 1 ....***The graph will be found after our GLOSSARY. t was originally inall in A Summary of Research, p. 10. eee er. teq pp. 9-10. It would be possible for similar graphs to be drawn : • .for our three school distracts, but with a time line, for the last half- dozen{. en years, though naturally, the specific findings and percentages as given here would undoubtedly vary.