A Columbus City Schools committee analyzing schools’ returns on investment found a single math-proficient student at Columbus City Preparatory School for Boys costs the district around $450,000.
During a June 10 meeting, the Academic Facility Alignment Committee began a process of analyzing the return on investment for district programs not mandated by law, beginning with Columbus City Preparatory School for Boys and Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls. Both are gender-specific middle school programs.
The Columbus City Preparatory School for Boys, located in Eastmoor, is the district’s emptiest school building, with around 100 students for a capacity of around 430 students – well below the threshold in a proposed law that would compel districts to report schools operating below 60% capacity and require them to offer underused facilities for sale or lease to charter schools.
Committee Chair Jennifer Adair said the new committee initiative to examine the return on investment for programs including specialty schools and athletic programs will assess the efficiency of programs as the district faces ongoing budget challenges.
“Those are all the things we have to answer,” Adair said. “We have a limited amount of money. If we invest in the gendered schools, it might mean we can’t invest in something else.”
According to data presented it costs $450,000 per math-proficient student at Columbus City Preparatory School for Boys, versus a peer average of $58,000. It also costs $180,000 per English/language arts-proficient student, versus peer average of $38,000.
The figures were calculated by dividing total spending by the number of students determined to be proficient on Ohio state testing. Adair said the problem stems in-part from the small numbers of students enrolled.
At Columbus City Preparatory School for Girls, which has around 200 students, it costs $78,000 per math-proficient student, versus peer average of $58,000. English/language arts-proficient students cost slightly less at $35,000 per student, less than the peer average of $38,000.
Columbus gendered schools cost more per student
While it costs on average $13,000 to $14,000 to educate a CCS middle schooler, it costs around $17,000 to educate a student at the girls school and nearly $35,000 at the boys school. Overall, according to the presentation, CCS spends an estimated $2.5 to $2.6 million more per year operating the two schools than it would if the same students attended peer middle schools in the district.
Adair said that while she has been a proponent of the two schools, the district has “to be honest about how we start these programs with good intention and then do not do them with fidelity.”
“You hear these stories, you hear those successes (at the boys school) – as a board member – I have to take a higher look, and think about the 47,000 students in the district,” Adair said. “And that’s the balancing, does our community want us to serve the under 100 students at the boys school at those costs and at those expenses – and it’s a community dialogue.”
The Preparatory City School for Boys building was among nine school buildings proposed for closure under a plan presented to the CCS board in 2024. The proposal called for the school to potentially merge buildings with the School for Girls, located in Olde Towne East.
The 2026 presentation noted that Ohio law prohibits operating a single-gender school for one sex without an equivalent program for the other, meaning that closing the school for the boys would require closing the girls program.
“At this point in time we don’t have unlimited money, we are cutting and we have to make these hard decisions – does the community want gender based middle school education?” Adair said.
Cole Behrens covers K-12 education and school districts in central Ohio. Have a tip? Contact Cole at cbehrens@dispatch.com or connect with him on X at @Colebehr_report
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: At this Columbus school, math proficiency costs $450K per student
Reporting by Cole Behrens, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Cole Behrens, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
