Districts ambivalent about merger idea

From the Erie Times-News.

School districts ambivalent about governor's merger idea

BY VALERIE MYERS
Published: April 05. 2009 12:01AM

SCHOOL DISTRICTS -- BY THE NUMBERS
The number of public-school districts, public schools and public-school students is actually increasing nationally:
1993-94 school year:
14,523 public-school districts, 83,621 public schools, 43.5 million public-school students.
2007-08: 14,556 public-school districts, 100,308 public schools, 49.8 million public-school students.
SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics

When two Beaver County school districts are pronounced the Central Valley School District on July 1, they will be the first ever to merge without the state Department of Education forcing them to do so.

The voluntary consolidation of the Center Area and Monaca school districts will reduce the number of Pennsylvania's local school districts from 501 to 500 -- or 400 more than Gov. Ed Rendell wants.

Rendell has proposed a legislative commission to recommend ways to downsize -- he says "right-size" -- the number of public school districts to no more than 100, or about 1.5 school districts per county.

The action has precedent; the state has ordered a number of school district consolidations through the years. The most widespread through the 1960s pared 2,277 local school districts to 669, said David Davare, director of research services for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.

Not many people regret those consolidations.

But many wonder whether further consolidations are financially and educationally prudent.

Keeping up (or down) with Joneses

Rendell points to neighboring Maryland as a model for Pennsylvania's schools. Maryland has just 24 school districts -- one in each county.

The upsides of consolidation, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, include reducing "staggering, and growing" administrative costs, local property tax relief, and pooling of resources for better, more-affordable education, including more class choices than small districts can provide.

Also, only 10 states have more school districts than Pennsylvania, and many of the highest-achieving states are organized into far fewer school districts, according to the PDE.

But a 2001 study by Syracuse University's Center for Policy Research found that school district consolidations in New York state have saved money only for very small districts, had negligible savings for districts of 1,500 students, and increased costs in larger districts -- both in dollars for labor and transportation and in staff, student and parent engagement.

And in other states where consolidations have recently been ordered, they aren't universally popular. In Maine, voters are organizing a referendum in hopes of repealing a 2007 law requiring consolidation of the state's 290 local school districts into about 80.

In Nebraska, where a 2005 state law requires elementary-only school districts to merge with K-12 districts, a lawsuit attempting to overturn the law was dismissed in federal court but has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.


Been there, (not) done that

Retired Harbor Creek schools Superintendent David Smith at one time favored the consolidation of the Harbor Creek and Iroquois school districts.

Analysis and some preliminary consolidation of the two administrations changed his mind.

The two districts were the last in Erie County to seriously consider consolidation, in 1999. A state incentive grant paid for some administrative consolidation, including sharing a business manager who worked half of each day at Harbor Creek and half at Iroquois.

"The savings we anticipated just weren't there," Smith said. "By and large, it worked out well, but it wasn't saving money. The business manager was putting in ungodly hours."

Other pocketbook issues and the educational issues of consolidation are tougher to address, Smith said. One school district might have a junior high school and the other a middle school. One might have its buildings paid for while the other has significant debt that taxpayers in the combined district would have to pay off.

Academic success and which schools close, which remain open and whether new schools are needed can be even bigger headaches.

"And when you start talking about cost savings and closing down schools that aren't efficient or too small, then you get into transportation issues, and that's a nightmare. Transportation costs are enormous," Smith said.

The toll isn't just in gasoline and maintenance, but time, he said.

"How much time are youngsters spending on that bus and what activities are they going to miss out on because they're on that bus? You have to consider those kinds of things as well," Smith said.


Tigers and Yellowjackets 1, Vikings 0

Another problem with consolidation is loss of local identity and control. It was the deal-breaker when Fairview and Girard school districts looked at consolidation 40 years ago. By state mandate at the time, no district could have fewer than 4,000 students. Both Fairview and Girard were below that number and planned consolidation while appealing the mandate.

The two districts drew up plans for a joint Lake Erie High School and together hired a football coach and bought Viking wrestling mats and football uniforms before the state Board of Education finally granted their appeals -- based on loss of local control and identity and no real educational benefit -- in 1970. The red-and-black Fairview Tigers and yellow-and-black Girard Yellowjackets wound up divvying the blue-and-gold Viking spoils.

Those local identities and loyalties can derail consolidation, said Daniel Matsook, superintendent of the Center Area School District now merging with Monaca.

"We call those matters of the heart, and we've put them on the back burner," Matsook said. "There comes a time when you have to look beyond maintaining inefficiencies because somebody wants to maintain their school colors or mascot."


Third time's no charm

In Chautauqua County's Ripley Central School District, the economics of consolidation with neighboring Westfield or Sherman schools haven't convinced voters who decide the issue in New York state. Ripley has looked at mergers three times in the past 10 years. They've been rejected by one of the parties all three times, most recently by voters in the Westfield Academy and Central School District in February.

"There's no overwhelming proof that centralization eliminates or reduces taxes," said Jeff Buchholz, who taught in Ripley and was president of the teachers union there through all but the most recent merger effort.


Central (Valley) issues

For Monaca and Center Area school districts, where enrollments have declined along with the steel industry, consolidation is expected to improve both education and economics. The two districts expect to save a combined $1.4 million annually, Department of Education spokesman Michael Race said.

Still, consolidation -- including closing an elementary school and deciding on middle school rather than junior high -- hasn't been easy, Center Area's superintendent said. The two school districts have been working on the merger for more than three years.

"We went into this agreeing only to investigate whether merger makes sense or not; we didn't go into it saying we're going to merge," Matsook said. "We looked at the facts, and the facts bore this out."