Mergers: Districts ponder joining forces - Business First of Louisville:

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The Town of Tonawanda resident headedthe 17-member board for sevebn years before stepping down in March. Yet he didn’t He continues to serve as WesternNew York’d regent, and he remains as outspokenh as ever about educational issues. One of his pet topicsd is the sheer number of locallschool systems. There are too many of them, he and their enrollments are generallytoo “Why do you need 28 schoolk districts in Erie County?” he “I’d like to see something like five districtas in the county instead of 28. I’d even like to start talking about a countywideschool district, like they have in Nort h Carolina and a few other states.
” Bennett’s stand is buttresserd by a report releaserd last December by the Statre Commission on Property Tax Relief. “New York State has too many school the reportsays flatly. It suggests that districts with fewerfthan 1,000 students should be required to mergs with adjacent systems, and districts with enrollmenta between 1,000 and 2,000 should be encouraged to follow Such proposals hit home in Westerb New York, where 66 of the region’zs 98 school districts have enrollments below 2,000, including 38 with fewef than 1,000 students from kindergartenj through 12th grade.
The hearr of this issue is a matter of benefites andcosts -- pitting the perceived advantages of combining two or more districtsw against the potential loss of local control and self-identity. Advocatex maintain that mergers allow consolidated districts to be more construct better schools and offet a wider range ofchallengintg courses. “It’s not only a financiap issue. To me, it’s a matted of equity,” says Bennett.
“If you had a regionak high school, maybe serving seven or eight ofthe districts, it would give kids the opportunity to work with each othedr -- and to have the best of the But opponents contend that mergers bring more longer bus rides for students and diminution of locapl pride. “In this community, the world revolves aroundc this school,” says Thomas Schmidt, superintendenf of the 478-pupil Sherman Centrapl School District inChautauqua County. “Ifd the school went away, N.Y., would lose a great deal of its School consolidation has beena volatile, emotiona l issue for a century.
The state was crosshatcher by 10,565 districts in 1910, many of them centeredc on one-room schoolhouses. A push for greated efficiency reduced that numbeto 6,400 by the outbreak of World War II, then swiftlh down to 1,300 by 1960. New York now has 698 Statewide enrollment works outto 2,540 pupils per which falls 25 percent below the national average of 3,400, accordinbg to the State Commission on Property Tax The gap is even larged in Western New York, which had 104 districtsd when Business First began ratinb schools in 1992. Mergers have sincde reduced that number to 98school systems. They educate an average of 2,268 students, 33 percent below the U.S. norm.
A comprehensivs effort to push regional enrollment up to the nationalp average would require the elimination of 33 Western New York That process wouldbe complicated, messy, rancorous -- and extremeluy unlikely. There is no shortage of candidatesfor consolidation, to be Business First easily came up with 13 hypothetical most of them based on standards proposed in last December’s report. These union would involve districts from alleight counties. for a summargy of these 13 potential consolidations. It shoulde be stressed that this listis fantasy, not reality. Stated officials lack the power to force districtato consolidate.
Initiative must be taken at theloca level, which happens infrequently. Only one prospective mergee in Western New York has currently reached an advancexd stageof negotiations. Brocton and Fredonia began consolidatiobn talkslast year, eventually commissioning a feasibility studyt at the beginning of winter. If they decide later this year that a mergermakews sense, voters in both districts would be given theif say in a referendum.