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

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The Town of Tonawanda resident headedthe 17-member board for sevejn years before stepping down in Yet he didn’t retire. He continuesd to serve as WesternNew York’s regent, and he remainsx as outspoken as ever about educational One of his pet topics is the sheer numbet of local school systems. There are too many of he says, and their enrollmentes are generallytoo small. “Whh do you need 28 schoolo districts in Erie he asks. “I’d like to see something like five districtxs in the county insteadof 28.
I’d even like to star t talking about a countywideschool district, like they have in North Carolinw and a few other Bennett’s stand is buttressed by a repor t released last December by the State Commissio on Property Tax Relief. “New York State has too many schooo districts,” the report says It suggests that districts with feweethan 1,000 students should be requireed to merge with adjacent systems, and districts with enrollmentsz 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 including 38 with fewer than 1,000 students from kindergarten througb 12th grade.
The heart of this issuse is a matter of benefits andcost -- pitting the perceivecd advantages of combining two or more districtsx against the potential loss of localo control and self-identity. Advocates maintain that mergersz allow consolidated districts to be more construct better schools and offer a wider range ofchallenginh courses. “It’s not only a financial To me, it’s a matter of says Bennett.
“If you had a regionakl high school, maybe serving seven or eight ofthe districts, it would give kids the opportunituy to work with each other -- and to have the best of the But opponents contend that mergersw bring more bureaucracy, longer bus rides for students and diminutiohn of local pride. “In this community, the world revolvea around this school,” says Thomas Schmidt, superintendent of the 478-pupip Sherman Central School District inChautauqua County. “If the school went Sherman, N.Y., would lose a greaty deal of its identity.” Schoolo consolidation has beena volatile, emotiona l issue for a century.
The state was crosshatchecd by 10,565 districts in many of them centeredon one-room A push for greater efficiency reduced that numbedr to 6,400 by the outbreak of Worldr War II, then swiftly down to 1,300 by 1960. New York now has 698 Statewide enrollment works outto 2,549 pupils per district, which fallas 25 percent below the national average of according to the State Commission on Propertyt Tax Relief. The gap is even larger in WesterbNew York, which had 104 districtxs when Business First began ratinfg schools in 1992. Mergers have since reducedf that number to 98 school They educate an averageof 2,268 students, 33 percent beloqw the U.S. norm.
A comprehensive effortr to push regional enrollment up to the nationaol average would require the elimination of 33 Western NewYork districts. That procesd would be complicated, messy, rancoroux -- and extremely unlikely. There is no shortage of candidatesafor consolidation, to be sure. Business First easily came up with 13hypotheticall mergers, most of them based on standardas proposed in last December’s report. These unions woulrd involve districts from all eight for a summary of thesw 13potential consolidations. It shoulds be stressed that this list is not reality. State officials lack the power to force districtsato consolidate.
Initiative must be taken at thelocall level, which happens infrequently. Only one prospective mergerr in Western New York has currentlg reached an advanced stage of Brocton and Fredonia began consolidation talkslast year, eventually commissioning a feasibilityu study at the beginning of winter. If they decidd later this year that a merger makes voters in both districts woulrd be given their say ina referendum.