My Turn: How to roll two regional districts into one

STAFF FILE PHOTO STAFF FILE PHOTO
Published: 10-20-2024 6:33 PM |
The Six Town Regionalization Planning Board (STRPB) voted in January 2024 to move forward with crafting a proposed regional district agreement for combining the Pioneer Valley and Gill-Montague Regional School Districts. The proposed new pre-K through 12 regional district would include the towns of Bernardston, Gill, Leyden, Montague, Northfield, and Warwick (a former member of the Pioneer Valley district) with the possibility of Erving and Vernon (Vermont) tuitioning their students into the new district’s middle and high schools.
Last spring, the STRPB appointed a District Regional Agreement Subcommittee (DRAS) to craft a new regional district agreement for the six towns to consider in the fall of 2025. Members of the DRAS were recommended by each town’s selectboard and appointed by the Planning Board. The process will culminate more than five years of research, with contributions from acting and retired superintendents, consultants, administrators, staff, teachers, parents and students.
The DRAS is working with the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools (MARS) Consulting Group, made up of retired superintendents, as they craft each section of the agreement. The subcommittee is using the regional agreement developed at the behest of the town selectboards in the Pioneer Valley Regional School District in 2017. Members of the Honest Education And Retraining Trust Committee were appointed by each selectboard. Michele Giarusso of Leyden served as chair.
Once the subcommittee completes its work, the Planning Board will review and contribute to its development before making a recommendation. The STRPB’s website, 6towns.org, has made available all of its research and other information from the past five years. The public and residents are encouraged to read these reports.
From its research, the STRPB concluded that by combining the two districts, the increase in enrollment would provide significant educational benefits to middle and high school students. Among some of the benefits are:
■Flexibility in scheduling (allowing for more content area core courses and electives).
■More athletic teams (bringing back some teams that were eliminated because of declining enrollment).
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■More AP courses, clubs, performing arts, foreign language, business, health/well-being classes, and capstone projects.
■More paraprofessional support and broader support for students with specialized service. In schools with low enrollment, there is also a tendency for students and faculty to feel pressure when trying to support programs by taking on more responsibilities. Increased enrollment can help alleviate those pressures and reduce student and faculty fatigue and burnout.
It was noted that having additional teachers in content areas would provide more approaches to learning and collaboration in all areas of instruction. For example, having four or five science teachers in a high school, instead of one or two, increases the number of courses and the diversity of subject matter that can be offered.
Faculty certified in specific subject areas would enjoy the benefit of sharing successful practices with their colleagues and allow them to plan diverse professional development opportunities tailored to their needs and the needs of their students.
As Alan Genovese, chairperson of the Planning Board,commented, “It is important for students to experience as many educational opportunities as possible and have emotional and social support systems to prepare them for their future, whether it be college, employment, military, entrepreneurship, public service, and/or overseas careers like the Peace Corps.”
Too often, communities focus on the finances of their school districts, thinking that more funding will solve their structural problem of low and declining enrollment. The misperception can be that reductions in staff, course offerings, electives, and after-school activities (i.e., middle and high school sports) are caused by financial constraints of affordability rather than enrollment. Chapter 70 funding is based on, and driven by enrollment, and as Edward Moscovitch (one of the authors of the Chapter 70 funding formula) noted — the formula works well for a district if enrollment is increasing and is problematic if it is decreasing.
The Gill-Montague and Pioneer Valley Districts have experienced declining enrollments ever since they peaked in 1996. Both districts currently have middle and high school enrollments that are more than 50% lower. Although combining the two districts would increase the middle and high school enrollments significantly, the new middle and high schools would still be small by state standards. Because of more course offerings, class sizes would remain reasonable.
To keep the public informed, the STRPB’s research, reports and other information can be found on its website at www.6towns.org. Comments and questions to the board can be sent to strpboffc@gmail.com.
Alan Genovese is chair and Greg Snedeker is vice-chair, secretary and treasurer of the Six Town Regionalization Planning Board.