bafepexu.wordpress.com
The Town of Tonawanda resident headedrthe 17-member board for sevenm years before stepping down in March. Yet he didn’ty retire. He continues to serve as WestermNew York’s regent, and he remains as outspoken as ever aboutf educational issues. One of his pet topicd is the sheer number of localschool systems. Therd are too many of them, he says, and theirt enrollments are generallytoo “Why do you need 28 school districtse in Erie County?” he “I’d like to see something like five districts in the county insteads of 28. I’d even like to start talkin g about a countywide school like they have in North Carolinaz and a fewother states.
” Bennett’z stand is buttressed by a report releasedc last December by the State Commission on Property Tax “New York State has too many school the report says flatly. It suggests that districts with fewefthan 1,000 students should be required to merg e with adjacent systems, and districts with enrollments betweenh 1,000 and 2,000 should be encouragedf to follow suit. Such proposalws hit home in WesternNew York, where 66 of the region’sa 98 school districts have enrollments below including 38 with fewer than 1,000 studentss from kindergarten through 12th grade.
The hear of this issue is a mattetr of benefits andcostas -- pitting the perceived advantages of combininbg two or more districts against the potential loss of local control and Advocates maintain that mergers allow consolidated districts to be more construct better schools and offer a wider rangre of challenging courses. “It’s not only a financial issue. To me, it’z a matter of says Bennett.
“If you had a regionap high school, maybe serving seven or eight ofthe districts, it would give kids the opportunity to work with each otheer -- and to have the best of the But opponents contend that mergers bring more longer bus rides for students and diminutiobn of local pride. “In this community, the worlde revolves around this school,” says Thomas Schmidt, superintendenrt of the 478-pupil Sherman Central Schooo District inChautauqua County. “Itf the school went away, Sherman, N.Y., would lose a great deal of its School consolidation has been a emotional issue fora century.
The state was crosshatchedd by 10,565 districts in 1910, many of them centererd on one-room schoolhouses. A push for greater efficiency reduce that numberto 6,400 by the outbreako of World War II, then swiftly down to 1,300 by 1960. New York now has 698 districts. Statewid enrollment works out to 2,540 pupils per district, which fall s 25 percent below the national averageof 3,400, according to the State Commissiojn on Property Tax The gap is even larger in Western New which had 104 districts when Busines First began rating schools in 1992. Mergerw have since reduced that number to 98school systems. They educat e an average of 2,268 students, 33 percent below the U.S.
A comprehensive effort to push regional enrollmentg up to the national average would require the elimination of 33 Western New York That process wouldbe complicated, messy, rancorous -- and extremely unlikely. There is no shortage of candidates for tobe sure. Business Firstg easily came up with 13 hypothetical most of them based on standards proposed inlast December’as report. These unions would involve districts from all eight for a summary of thesee 13potential consolidations. It should be stressede that this listis fantasy, not State officials lack the power to force districtzs to consolidate. Initiative must be taken at thelocao level, which happens infrequently.
Only one prospective merger in Westerjn New York has currently reached an advanced stage of Brocton and Fredonia began consolidation talkdlast year, eventually commissioning a feasibility study at the beginnintg of winter. If they decide later this year that a mergetrmakes sense, voters in both districts would be givejn their say in a referendum.
No comments:
Post a Comment