All school districts in Kansas are independent governments. Kansas has no public K-12 school systems dependent on another layer of government like a county government or a municipal government.[1]
The number of students in rural communities dropped significantly across the 20th century. As farming technology progressed from animal power to small tractors towards large tractors over time, it allowed a farmer to support significantly more farm land. In turn, this led to fewer farm families, which led to fewer rural students. In combination with a loss of young men during foreign wars and rural flight, all of these caused an incremental population shrinkage of rural communities over time. In 1945 (after World War II), the School Reorganization Act in Kansas caused the consolidation of thousands of rural school districts in Kansas (mostly one room rural school houses).[2] In 1963, the School Unification Act in Kansas caused the further consolidatation of thousands of tiny school districts into hundreds of larger Unified School Districts.[3]
This lists school districts that merged to form a new school district.[4] The number of consolidations is half the size of this list because every district is listed on the left side.