The OEA defines severely under-enrolled schools as using less than 80 percent of building capacity. The problem is most prevalent in middle schools, according to the office's research. Severe over-enrollment — that's schools at 130 percent capacity or more — is much rarer and mostly occurs among high schools.
Combining schools is not feasible in the vast majority of cases, especially in rural areas due to geography and transportation, but OEA research analyst Chris Riley said some schools do show potential.
"We identified apparent feasibility of consolidation in 15 elementary, 25 middle, and 11 high schools," he told lawmaker this week.
Yet researcher Dr. Deborah Nelson noted that any effort to consolidate schools reliably invites swift public backlash.
"The districts often, you can see in the news, face a lot of local opposition to that, so if they're trying to do something that is politically very difficult to do, the General Assembly can consider some things."
Those things range from carrot to stick approaches, including linking consolidation pushes to state funding to put more pressure on districts to combine schools that are under-enrolled.