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Ilion, NY 13357
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Superintendent
Communities take first look at merger study
Nearly 60 members of the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) learned about the merger study process and got a look at the first of the study data during a meeting Wednesday evening, Jan. 19 at Herkimer BOCES. (View the complete meeting agenda (PDF))
The study conducted by SES Study Team, will help the communities decide if a four-school merger would meet three basic goals: 1) expand student opportunities, 2) improve efficiencies, and 3) reduce costs. At the completion of the eight-month study, the boards of education and the communities will vote to decide whether to go ahead with a merger.
No preconceived notions
SES member Paul Seversky explained that over the next six months, his group will present the data—and only the data—for the committee to review. The committee will analyze that data and use it to draw their own conclusions regarding the feasibility of a school merger.
“We won’t work with districts that have a preconceived notion (whether a merger is feasible or not),” Seversky told the committee. From time to time school board members and superintendents will attend meetings of the community advisory committees to listen. They are not members of the committees. Until the study is completed, it would not be fair to ask them to share judgments about the data or the work of the committees.
Seversky’s comments reinforced the understanding that the districts and their leaders do not have a particular agenda—for or against a merger. The goal is to collect and present the data, analyze it, and to create a picture of what a merged district look like. Then, it will be up to the communities to decide what is best for their children.
Big questions
SES attempted to answer some questions up front and allowed committee members to ask some questions of their own. Among them were:
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Is this merger an annexation? No. This is a centralization; the communities would create a new school district as opposed to a district dissolving and being absorbed by another.
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Could the state force a merger? At this time, no. There is discussion, however, that the state might review schools and recommend that some districts merge. For those who refuse to merge, the state might withhold a portion of state aid.
How long is the data from the study valid? The data is relevant for one to two years meaning that any decision based on the data would have to be made in that time. Any longer and the district’s would have to conduct a new study.
What if only two or three district want to pursue a merger? The State Education Department has agreed that the data collected would be valid and could be used to explore a merger of two, three, or four districts.
Could the merger change district boundaries? No.
Is data from prior merger studies useful? No, the data from previous studies is too old to be valid.
What prompted the merger study? Each of the districts recognized three important changes:
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Eroding revenues;
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Declining funding; and
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A subtle degradation of the quality of education each could offer.
How would a merger impact taxes? At this point, no one can know the tax impact until the communities develop an idea of what they would want in a school.
Breaking it down
Changes will impact different parts of the school district in different ways. To better understand those impacts, the committee members were randomly assigned to one of three groups:
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Personnel & Finance—staffing, budget, salaries, taxes, etc.
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Program—academics, sports and extracurricular activities, BOCES, etc.
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Functional Services—buildings & grounds, bussing, food service, etc.
“We will ask your (each group’s) observations about the data,” said Seversky. “What opportunities will exist if the districts reorganize? What challenges will we face if the districts reorganize?”
To begin the process, he asked members to write down two questions that felt their groups should answer. Then each member wrote down a third question that he or she felt needed to be answered by someone during the study.
The study team posted the questions on wall, placing them in the group that would be best able to answer them. Questions ranged from bus rides to sports and buildings to staffing levels.
Over the course of the study, each group will address those questions.
Looking at the data – how many students will we have in the future?
“Schools are not businesses, but we should be business-like,” Seversky said regarding the way schools make decisions. “We need to know who our future clients are.”
With that, he introduced the first of the data—the projected enrollment for each of the districts over the next 10 years.
The calculations follow a set of factors such as live births within the district, the number of children entering kindergarten, families with children moving in and out of the district, changes in job opportunities, new home construction, etc.
The final projections represent the low to high range for each district. In general terms, the enrollment trends are as follows:
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Frankfort-Schuyler—slight to moderate growth
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Herkimer—slight growth
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Ilion—stable to slight growth
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Mohawk—slight to moderate decline
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Merged District—slight to moderate decline
(View the complete data (PDF))
At the next meeting, the groups will begin to analyze these enrollment projections to imagine how a consolidated school might look.
The next meeting is slated for Thursday, Feb. 3.
