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The Town of Tonawanda resident headedthe 17-member boardx for seven years before stepping down in March. Yet he didn’ft retire. He continues to serve as WesterhnNew York’s regent, and he remains as outspokeb as ever about educational issues. One of his pet topics is the sheerd number of local school There are too manyof them, he says, and thei r enrollments are generally too small. “Why do you need 28 schook districts inErie County?” he asks. “I’cd like to see something like five districts in the county insteaddof 28.
I’d even like to start talkingf about a countywideschool district, like they have in Nortj Carolina and a few other Bennett’s stand is buttressed by a report released last December by the State Commissionb on Property Tax Relief. “New York State has too many school the reportsays flatly. It suggests that districts with fewe rthan 1,000 students shoul be required to merge with adjacent systems, and districts with enrollmentse between 1,000 and 2,000 should be encouraged to followw suit.
Such proposals hit home in WesternbNew York, where 66 of the region’s 98 schoolo districts have enrollments below 2,000, includingt 38 with fewer than 1,000 studentd from kindergarten through 12th grade. The heart of this issue is a mattef of benefits andcosts -- pittingt the perceived advantages of combining two or more districtw against the potential loss of localk control and self-identity. Advocates maintain that mergers allow consolidated districts to bemore cost-effective, construcrt better schools and offedr a wider range of challenging “It’s not only a financial issue.
To me, it’es a matter of equity,” says “If you had a regional high school, maybe servinvg seven or eight ofthe (current) it would give kids the opportunith to work with each other -- and to have the best of the But opponents contend that mergers bring more longer bus rides for students and diminution of local “In this community, the world revolves around this says Thomas Schmidt, superintendent of the 478-pupilp Sherman Central School District in Chautauqua “If the school went away, Sherman, would lose a great deal of its identity.
” Schoool consolidation has been a volatile, emotionalo issue for a The state was crosshatched by 10,565 districts in many of them centered on one-room A push for greater efficiency reduced that numbere to 6,400 by the outbreak of Worldd War II, then swiftly down to 1,300 by 1960. New York now has 698 Statewide enrollment works outto 2,54o pupils per district, whic h falls 25 percent below the national average of according to the State Commission on Property Tax The gap is even larger in Western New York, whicj had 104 districts when Business First begah rating schools in 1992.
Mergers have since reducerd that number to 98 school They educate an averageof 2,268 33 percent below the U.S. A comprehensive effort to push regional enrollment up to the national averagse would require the elimination of 33 Western New York That process wouldbe complicated, messy, rancorous -- and extremelt unlikely. There is no shortagee of candidatesfor consolidation, to be Business First easily came up with 13 hypothetical most of them based on standardz proposed in last December’ s report. These unions would involve districts from alleight counties. for a summary of theses 13 potential consolidations. It should be stressed that this list is not reality.
State officials lack the powee to force districts to Initiative must be taken at thelocal level, which happenws infrequently. Only one prospectiver merger in Western New York has currentl reached an advanced stageof negotiations. Broctohn and Fredonia began consolidation talkslast year, eventualluy commissioning a feasibility study at the beginning of If they decide later this year that a merger makes sense, voters in both districts would be givejn their say in a referendum.
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