Dive Brief:

• In Vermont, rural school districts with declining enrollment and rising per-pupil costs now are mandated to consolidate to increase the local homestead tax rate.
• The new law regarding consolidation would cut the number of districts in the state in half by the year 2018.
• Some 79 Vermont school districts have less than 100 students, and the state has an estimated 80,000 students and spends $18,000 per head.

Dive Insight:

Districts in Alaska, Kansas, and Oklahoma have also wrestled with decisions to consolidate. For small rural districts, it's one way to contend with costs. Alaska has considered closing schools that are sparsely populated, and Kansas recently voted down a plan to turn the state's districts into more geographically expansive county-wide districts, which would have cut the overall number of districts in half — similar to what's happening now in Vermont.

But it's not just rural districts that are affected by the problem of declining student enrollment and rising costs. Los Angeles Unified and New York City are also grappling with the problem. In Schodack Central School District in upstate New York, where capacity was at 33% in June 2015, empty classrooms were being rented out at no cost to start up companies in exchange for learning opportunities for school students.