After listening to the community plead for the status quo in high school education over the past couple of years, we decided to take a look at how our students have been doing under the status quo.

The results were sobering, to be quite honest.

Some were sobering despite not being surprising, like the decreasing number of high school juniors taking the Keystone Exams across the county. The county’s overall junior class has decreased from 347 students in 2014-15 to 255 in 2023-24, with none of the four high schools seeing a growth in the number of test-taking students. The Eisenhower attendance area had lost the most students over the past 10 years – though of the rural schools it had the most students to lose.

But even more sobering is how students have performed on the Keystone Exams. As we hear arguments to keep four high schools, it’s important to see what’s happening statistically. The numbers don’t lie – and the numbers aren’t great. Over 10 years, proficiency has remained higher in Algebra 1 at Eisenhower than it has at Sheffield or Youngsville. Sheffield showed greater proficiency gains in science compared to Eisenhower and Youngsville, but Eisenhower’s proficiency rates were still higher than the other two rural schools. The same is true in English.

The numbers say we have to do something different with our rural high schools. We can, and must, provide a better quality of education than we have been providing in our rural schools.

We can make a financial argument for closing two high school buildings. Cutting overhead expenses allows the Warren County School District to stretch its limited funding further and stave off financial issues that are a lot closer than many want to admit. But we feel you can also make an educational argument for closing two high schools. The two schools that are closing are the ones that largely struggled the most on standardized tests. And, with fewer of our students entering college upon graduation, closing two high schools should allow for more courses that help prepare our graduates for the workforce.

This transition isn’t easy. Finances were the handwriting on the wall for the county’s four high school configuration. But student performance should be driving this discussion.