Macy Lorz
Section 2.3 Community Demographics
2.2.13 Analyze the community’s shifting demographics, and recommend ways that the
educational system can respond.
Looking back on the demographics of educational systems and comparing them to how
they are now, one would be blown away by the immense amount of changes that have taken
place that have shaped our school district of Olentangy to what it is today. Due to demographic
changes, schools need to be able to successfully adjust and adapt to the community. For example,
the Ohio Department of Education broke down areas of demographic data in personal data,
property valuation and tax data, local tax effort data, expenditure data, revenue by source data
and school district financial status data, and used these to make comparisons between individual
school district’s statistics with statewide and similar districts’ statistics (Evidence 2.3.1).
One major demographic that specifically affects the Olentangy Local School District is
population. As of 2020, the Olentangy District population has rapidly increased to 86,025
students (Evidence 2.3.2). The district is in need of intervention teachers, more space and a need
for cultural diversity resources. Population growth has always been a problem in our district,
however; last year the opening of Berlin High School and the more recent talk about opening up
a new elementary school and two new middle schools in the district will allow for there to be a
sustainable number of students in each school. Many schools and communities are impacted by
population changes, not just the Olentangy District. For example, Dublin City Schools have
added over 3,000 students since 2007 and more than 3,000 are expected over the next ten years.
To prepare for these increased changes in student enrollment, the District is constructing a new
middle school and two new elementary schools this year (Evidence 2.3.3). Furthermore, when
looking at Columbus City Schools, they are known to be the Ohio’s largest school district
serving more than 51,000 students in 109 schools (Evidence 2.3.4).
Comparing Columbus City Schools (Evidence 2.3.5) and Dublin City schools (Evidence
2.3.6) statistics to Olentangys’ statistics (Evidence 2.3.7), shows that there are many differences
in the demographics of these schools that have shaped their individual responses and offerings
that they give to their students. Out of the three school districts, Columbus City Schools looks to
be the most culturally diverse district with 22.10% of the population being white, 54.06% being
African American, 12.53% to be Hispanic, and 3.87% to be Asain. While comparing these three
schools, some of the most shocking demographics I found was that Columbus City Schools had a
100% poverty rate while Olentangys was 6.74% and Dublins was 15.77%. On the charts from
the Ohio Department of Education they did not label the students to be in “poverty”, instead they
labeled the students under that demographic as “disadvantaged”. Lastly, with the increased
population comes an increase in the number of students with disabilities. This causes more of a
concern as it becomes more of a struggle to find enough intervention specialist teachers. Of the
districts’ populations 13.58% of Olentangy students are disabled, 17.84% of Columbus City
Schools are disabled, and 12.01% of Dublin's students are as well. These numbers may not seem
very high, but when taking into consideration the amount of attention and space disabled
students need in comparison to the amount of teachers we have to provide them with is
unacceptable.
In the next couple of years diversity demographics are expected to change. In order to
prepare for this cultural diversity education system OLSD has hired a diversity department to
ensure that our staff is prepared to address issues that will arise. It is extremely important that
members of the district, including parents, teachers, and the board of education respond to these
shifting demographics in a responsible and educated manner (Evidence 2.3.8). Schools may
respond to growing diversity by professional development, budgeting and planning, asking for
parent involvement, or engaging the community to help in the areas that are needed. Teachers
may respond by developing culturally responsive pedagogies, creating a flexible and welcoming
classroom environment for the students, parent communication, and collaboration so the students
can comfortably receive the learning they deserve.
Overall, educational systems and the community needs to be aware of these shifting
demographics and be able to react and respond to them in an effective way to enhance students’
contribution and role in education.