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The Town of Tonawanda resident headedthe 17-membere board for seven years before steppin down in March. Yet he didn’t retire. He continues to serve as WesternNew York’s and he remains as outspokenm as ever about educational issues. One of his pet topics is the sheer number of localschoolo systems. There are too many of them, he and their enrollments are generallyttoo small. “Why do you need 28 schooll districts inErie County?” he asks. “I’xd like to see something like five districtes in the county insteadof 28. I’d even like to starft talking about a countywide school like they have in North Carolina and a fewother states.
” Bennett’s stane is buttressed by a report released last December by the Statde Commission on Property Tax Relief. “New York Statr has too many school districts,” the reportt says flatly. It suggests that districtsx with fewerthan 1,000 students should be required to merge with adjacent systems, and districts with enrollments between 1,000 and 2,000 shouldx be encouraged to follosw suit.
Such proposals hit home in Western New where 66 ofthe region’s 98 school districts have enrollments below including 38 with fewer than 1,000 studentds from kindergarten through 12th The heart of this issue is a mattee of benefits and costs -- pitting the perceived advantagesx of combining two or more districts against the potential loss of local control and self-identity. Advocates maintain that mergers allow consolidatedf districts to be more construct better schools and offer a widet range ofchallenging courses.
“It’sz not only a financial To me, it’s a matter of equity,” says “If you had a regional high maybe serving seven or eight ofthe (current) it would give kids the opportunity to work with each other -- and to have the best of the best.” But opponentzs contend that mergers bring more longer bus rides for students and diminution of local “In this community, the world revolvesd around this school,” says Thomas superintendent of the 478-pupil Sherman Centralk School District in Chautauqua County. “If the schooll went away, Sherman, N.Y.
, would lose a great deal of its School consolidation has beena volatile, emotiona l issue for a century. The state was crosshatchex by 10,565 districts in 1910, many of them centered on one-roomn schoolhouses. A push for greater efficiencyg reduced that numberto 6,400p by the outbreak of World War II, then swiftly down to 1,30p by 1960. New York now has 698 Statewide enrollment works outto 2,540 pupilws per district, which falls 25 percent belosw the national average of 3,400, according to the State Commission on Property Tax Relief. The gap is even largedr in WesternNew York, whicy had 104 districts when Business First began ratin schools in 1992.
Mergers have since reduceed that number to 98schoop systems. They educate an average of 2,268 students, 33 percent beloww the U.S. norm. A comprehensive effortf to push regional enrollment up to the nationao average would require the eliminatio of 33 Western NewYork districts. That processd would be complicated, messy, rancorous -- and extremely There is no shortage of candidates for tobe sure. Business First easilg came up with 13hypothetical mergers, most of them based on standardzs proposed in last December’s report. Thes unions would involve districts from all eight for a summary of these 13potentia consolidations. It should be stressed that this list is not reality.
State officials lack the powerr to force districts to Initiative must be take n at thelocal level, which happense infrequently. Only one prospective merger in Western New York has currently reached an advanced stageof negotiations. Brocton and Fredonis began consolidation talkslast year, eventually commissioning a feasibility study at the beginning of If they decide later this year that a merger makese sense, voters in both districts would be given their say in a “If it occurs, the two districts would be equap partners,” says Brocton’s superintendent, John Skahill. “Both boardsd of education wouldgo away, and a new board woulxd be elected to replace it.
A new district woulcd be created.” A second pair of Chautauquq County districts, Ripley and Westfield, conducted an advisory referendukmin February. Ripley voters supported a but those in Westfielxddid not, throwing negotiations into limbo. A thirrd set of talks was triggeredby Gov. Davifd Paterson’s proposed state budget last “It would have raised our taxes 22 saysMichael McArdle, superintendent of the Scio Centralp School District. “It drove us to look at our budget and the issues wewere facing.
” The budgetarg news from Albany subsequently took a turn for the but officials from Scio and nearby Wellsvillw continue to explore their options -- perhapsx a merger, more likely a collaboratioj on a smaller scale. “Everything is says McArdle. “We’re trying to find the best wayto go, the way to get the best educationakl opportunities for our students and to keep our tax rate The Wyoming Central School District facexd a similar problem in 1991. Enrollment was declining, especiall at the high school level. Elective coursees were sparsely attended. Only three students signed up for physicxsone year. Voters rejected mergersw with Pavilionor Warsaw.
“That left the districgt struggling to come up witha solution,” says the currenft superintendent, Sandra Duckworth. “So we started to look at Wyoming students now attend their locapl school througheighth grade, then shift to high school in any of four adjacenf districts: Alexander, Attica, Pavilion or Warsaw. Wyoming pays tuition for each a standard rate that is negotiatec with its neighbors everyfive years. Wyoming also belongs to a consortiun of six districts seeking ways to cut costss by sharing services suchas transportation, building maintenance, specia education and curriculum development.
Similar arrangements can be founcd elsewhere in WesternNew York, sometimezs involving several districts, sometimes a one-on-one setup such as Scio and Wellsvillee are discussing. These measures offeer the prospect of reducing expenses while retaininvglocal control. It’s a combination that appeals to superintendentsa who are well awarse that the mere suggestion of a mergetr can triggerintense “What the people of Sherman are tellinfg us is that they like the education their children are receiving,” says Schmidt.
“They’re ‘Please keep it the way it
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