The supplemental service needs for specified school functions in selected Michigan school districts
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to determine in the judgment of respondents what organizations have and should have the major responsibility for providing supplemental services to local Michigan school districts and if the need for the service was adequate in 1973.Three local kindergarten through twelfth-grade school districts were randomly selected from each of the functioning fifty-eight intermediate school districts. District data were gathered by means of a questionnaire mailed to the superintendents of the selected school districts. Ninety-five districts responded and were included in the statistical component of the study.The instrument used in the study listed fifty-six selected school functions for which local school districts might have a need for supplemental services from an external organization. Data were tallied at a state-wide level for each specified school function to indicate the percentage of represented districts receiving assistance from each organization, the percentage of responses which specified each organization as the organization which should be providing service, and the need for assistance beyond what was being received.Data concerning district needs were tabulated into three district enrollment categories with each category containing approximately the same number of represented districts. The category containing districts with the smallest enrollments ranged from 210 to 1,303 students. The category containing the middle size districts had student populations from 1,364 to 2,734 and the category containing the districts with the largest enrollments had student populations which ranged from 2,825 to 22,850.The state was also divided into five regions for data examination. The Upper Peninsula was designated Region 1 and in the Lower Peninsula the northwest was Region 2, the northeast Region 3, the southwest Region 4, and the southeast Region 5.Institutions of higher education were providing a limited amount of supplemental service for most school functions and were judged as being responsible for providing additional assistance for the school functions of recruitment of professional personnel and scholarship information. The intermediate school districts were the major supplier for a markedly smaller number of school functions than desired by respondents and tended to be assigned the responsibility of providing service for functions for which local school districts were not receiving assistance. School functions for which the State Department of Education was the major supplier of supplemental service tended to be the same functions for which respondents indicated the State Department should be the supplier.Computer related activities, assistance with personnel problems, and high school and post-high school vocational-technical programs were functions district representatives judged the intermediate school district as being responsible for additional service. Assistance with school functions involving finances and educational research were the responsibility of the State Department.All regions had a common need for additional supplemental service for some school functions but each region had major needs which were not duplicated for every school function examined. Representatives from districts with large enrollments tended to desire assistance for more school functions involving research and evaluation than districts with smaller enrollments.