A gang at a large consolidated school could have 20 to 30 members. At a small 1-A school, if a gang did form it would be easy to identify and disperse. As for sports privation, many more students would have the opportunity to participate if a county had several smaller schools as contrasted to one or two larger schools, such as four or five football teams as opposed to one or two. To be a member of a 4-A high school basketball team, a student must be a very good athlete. The same is not true for a 1-A basketball team.
Burke County is currently devising plans to build additional schools, so school size is a hot topic.
I have lived through school consolidation in Burke County, and it appears we are slowly returning to the former arrangement. Although I, for one, believe that smaller schools will cure many ills, returning to that philosophy will never repair the cultural damage inflicted by school consolidation. Because these citizens and their parents had attended these schools and because their children were attending these schools, people felt pride and took ownership. Everyone knew everyone else. This kind of participation just does not exist relative to large schools.