Value of regionalization questioned in new report

By BEN STORROW Staff Writer

Published on October 16, 2009

The creation of a regional elementary school district makes little financial sense for the towns of Amherst, Leverett, Pelham and Shutesbury, according to a new report.

The finding of a panel charged with studying the matter is that any savings generated by regionalizing the schools in those four towns would be minimal. Now, the group will examine whether regionalization makes sense in educational terms.

The subject came up this year in response to pressures from the state to consolidate the number of school districts across the commonwealth.

Now, the towns of Leverett and Shutesbury belong to the Union 28 School District, while Amherst and Pelham belong to the Union 26 School District.

Last Thursday, the group met at the Amherst Regional Middle School to discuss the findings of its first report, the "K-6 Regionalization Study." The consensus of members was that regionalization made little financial sense.

"We have determined that there are neither substantial cost credits or debits concerning the combination of Amherst, Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury in a union or region," said committee Chairman Tom Powers of Leverett. "It's not a big deal financially."

The report outlined three scenarios: the expansion of Union 26 to include Leverett and Shutesbury, the creation of a regional K-12 school district and the creation of a K-12 district that eliminates the Pelham Elementary School. The first scenario would produce $9,000 in net savings because of the high administrative costs that Union 26 would have to shoulder.

In the second scenario, the towns would save $232,000 by creating a K-12 region, Powers said, although he cautioned anyone from becoming too excited about that figure. He noted its a fraction of what the four towns spend on elementary education.

The final scenario considered closing Pelham Elementary School as a part of regionalization.

While the four towns would save $638,000 under such a scheme, shuttering the Pelham school would create more problems than solutions, Powers said. The scenario would only be profitable if the town were successful in selling the school building, Powers said.

That is considered unlikely considering the special zoning bylaws that restrict use of school buildings to educational institutions.

Farshid Hajir, a member of the Leverett School Committee, agreed. A charter school would be one of the only potential buyers of the school building, which would end up costing the towns more money than it saved, Hajir said.

"If you turned the Pelham school into a charter school that would be pretty dumb," Hajir said, noting that the towns would lose about $18,000 per student to such a charter school.