Area educators: Local input, control should be state's biggest concern in school configuration

[ Originally published on: Saturday, June 13, 2009 ]

Local public school officials have many concerns about brewing legislation that would allow state bureaucrats to restructure school districts.

The governor's Executive Office of Education is working on a bill that could force some of the state's 329 school districts to reorganize into larger systems. The bill is expected to be filed this fall.

''I am both a public school person and a local control person,'' said Regina Nash, superintendent of Frontier Regional School and Union 38, in response to the notion of state mandated changes.

Nash said the state might be able to pass legislation that could force schools to reorganize.

''But, I don't think it is going to be successful if they mandate something that people don't want,'' she said.

She said she thinks that the state should work with communities to point out issues, and feels that people are reasonable, and if their children aren't getting a proper education, they will want to do something about it.

The governor's office envisions the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education reviewing all of the state's school districts and deciding whether the districts will collaborate with one or more districts, an educational collaborative, a municipality or other entity; or whether districts will form new regional systems.

Split Districts

The governor's report also envisions all districts being kindergarten through grade 12.

There are many split districts and unions throughout Franklin County.

In Frontier-Union 38's case Nash doesn't see the need. Union 38 has four one-town elementary school districts, with pre-kindergarten through grade 6, in Whately, Sunderland, Conway and Deerfield. Then, its students go to the Frontier Regional School District in Deerfield for grades 7-12.

If Frontier and Union 38 were to regionalize, it would cost an additional $450,000 each year to align the health insurance benefits and salaries of its staff -- and this would be an ongoing cost.

''We are a high performing district, do have capacity in my opinion and do have students that excel,'' she said.

East

To the east, Union 28 is a 700-student school system with four elementary school serving five towns -- Erving, Leverett, Shutesbury, New Salem and Wendell.

Raymond DiDonato, a member of the Wendell School Committee and the Union 28 Budget Personnel Committee, said he believes that the Swift River School and Union 28 are ''delivering an excellent education to the students of Wendell and other surrounding communities.''

''We are always seeking ways of collaborating to reduce education costs,'' said DiDonato, like joining the Hampshire Educational Collaborative.

''What concerns me are the assumptions being made about unions and split districts,'' he said.

''Union 28 and its member schools are efficient and capacious, and our schools and our union are providing the best education possible to our students, as evidenced for example by the union's MCAS results last year, as one indicator,'' he said.

He said research on regionalization efforts in other states has shown almost across the board that the promises of decreased cost and increased student performance have not panned out, with one effect certain, and that is a loss of local autonomy.

''The department should seriously consider streamlining unfunded mandates and state reporting requirements in order to make schools more efficient … Such requirements draw tremendous time and resources away from the classroom,'' he said.

Incentives

''I think the biggest issue for the school districts is the issue of incentives for any kind of consolidation and mergers,'' said Kevin Courtney, former Pioneer Valley Regional School District superintendent.

Courtney was the superintendent when Pioneer Valley Regional School District and Union 18, which included elementary schools from Northfield, Leyden, Warwick and Bernardston, combined in 1991 to form one K-12 district.

He said, given the prolonged recession, there doesn't seem to be much money around for incentives.

''It seems to be a piece that has to be addressed by any legislation.''

He said he wonders about the state's capacity to carry out ''something this ambitious'' -- referring to the plan to evaluate all the state's 329 school districts and then come up with a new organizational scheme.

''Done right, it is a massive undertaking,'' he said.

''I think it is going to get a tremendous amount of push back,'' he said.

He does feel the current plan is better than an earlier idea of simply setting a minimum enrollment size for districts.

Courtney now works for the Franklin County Public School Project, which is trying to develop collaboration ideas that would save money. Recently, one of its consultants released a report on how districts could save money by consolidation, primarily by shrinking the number of administrators running the schools.

Robert Aeschback, Mohawk Trail Regional School District chairman, said he thinks that it is going to take legislation to make real changes in school system structure.

''I think that people have the best intentions … but there is such a fear of losing local control.''

''It is almost impossible to get people to agree on how to collaborate better,'' he said.

He said that Mohawk has reached out to many surrounding districts to talk about ways to partner and hasn't had much success.

Greenfield interim Superintendent Susan Hollins said she has ''looked at state intervention in other places where districts are forced to change in one way or another … It doesn't generate commitment you need to make a change work.''

Hollins said often the schools get worse.

''Then again, sometimes you need a law to have society or businesses adopt a different standard … Creating positive change in large organizations is complex,'' she said.

''It is probably fair to say that legislators likely do not understand the ins and outs and complexities of school administration and the effort to streamline should not be one-sided,'' she added.

''I would much prefer, and have advocated, that people closest to the problem figure out workable solutions so they can own the outcomes and adapt willingly.''

 

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