BUCKLAND — The BEST Committee’s best ideas on how to reconfigure the Mohawk Trail Regional School District’s six school buildings could reduce costs between $500,000 to $1 million a year.
Committee members presented ideas they believe will create better class sizes, reduce student losses to School Choice and charter schools, and reduce assessments to member towns.
The committee’s preferred scenarios were well received Wednesday night by at least two dozen school parents, community members and town officials.
By December, the BEST Committee — “BEST” stands for “Building Educational Sustainability and Trust” — hopes to bring one long-range plan to Mohawk’s member towns, for consideration at a future town meeting vote. But the plan might be implemented in stages, over a few years. Also, such variables as new transportation options and whether Heath will stay in Mohawk’s elementary school system are not yet known.
One option supported by most at Tuesday’s meeting was a proposal to move all the district’s sixth-graders into the Mohawk Trail Regional Middle School, which would be expanded to serve Grades 6 through 8.
For instance, this fall the district is expected to have 48 sixth-graders enrolled in four elementary schools. Heath now has only two students in sixth grade, Colrain Central has nine, and Sanderson Academy has 13. But if all 48 district sixth-graders could have been educated together this year at the middle school, they would have had more classmates to socialize with, the chance for more specialized academic classes, and access to extra-curricular activities at Mohawk — including sports, theater and music. They would also have had the chance to become active within the middle school at a transition point, when families consider transferring a child out of district to another middle school or charter school.
Besides moving the sixth-graders to Mohawk, four other scenarios are being explored for advantages and disadvantages. Two factor in the possibility that Heath could pull its elementary school out of the Mohawk district and all presume that sixth-grade would be moved to Mohawk.
Scenario 1: To continue educating pre-kindergarten through Grade 2 students in all four elementary schools, while moving all children in Grades 3 through 5 to Buckland Shelburne Elementary (BSE) in Shelburne Falls. This would save about $530,000, reducing staff by about 14 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, including the equivalent of four full-time teaching positions, and five school aides. The advantage would be that it keeps an educational presence in existing schools for young children, but the disadvantage is it would produce marginal savings for the effort. Also, it would mean students don’t stay with town peers for their full elementary school years.
Scenario 2: Colrain Central and Heath would house only preschool (pre-K) classes, with Sanderson Academy in Ashfield and BSE serving pre-K through Grade 5. This would save about $681,000. It also reduces staffing by about 18 FTEs, including the equivalent of four full-time classroom teachers and six aides.
Scenario 3: If Heath leaves Mohawk’s elementary school system, Scenario 3 proposes BSE and Sanderson serve Grades pre-K to Grade 5, and that Colrain Central be used for pre-kindergarten only. This would save $1,024,000, reducing staff by about 24 FTE — including the equivalent of five teachers and eight aides. This change optimizes class size and generates a lot of savings. The disadvantages are it puts BSE at close to maximum capacity and that Colrain would need to find other uses for its school building.
Scenario 4: Heath leaves the elementary system, Sanderson and Colrain serve Grades pre-K to Grade 2; BSE serves Grades pre-K to 5. This would save about $1,124,040 — reducing staffing positions by about 26 FTE. That includes about 7 FTE teaching positions and eight FTE teaching aides. The advantage is its highest savings potential.
A fifth scenario, calling for all the district’s elementary students to be educated in a new central elementary school was jettisoned, because it would require the building of a new school. In contrast to an earlier claim that all of Mohawk’s students could be educated in the Mohawk Trail Regional School building, School Committee members say that all the district’s students could not be accommodated there.
Several people pointed out other issues to be studied in these scenarios.
School board member Joseph Kurland of Colrain asked if the savings had factored in the loss of Heath’s assessment in the scenarios that don’t include Heath. He was told that each option just examined cost savings, not revenues. The committee was also asked to look at how these savings might affect town assessments.
“We should keep in mind whether many of the changes we make can be reversible,” said Kurland. “We don’t know about population fluctuations 10 years down the road.”
School board member John Payne of Shelburne said the region’s population decline might all change with broadband access.
Superintendent Michael Buoniconti pointed out that, even if all goes smoothly, a new configuration of elementary classes would be at least a two-year process. For instance, if a plan was approved at the 2017 annual town meetings, budget plans would have to be put into place, state approval of the change would be needed and the earliest it could be put into place would be in 2018.
Buoniconti said the school district has a transportation contract through fiscal year 2019 and won’t be able to implement new transportation savings until at least 2020. Also, the transportation logistics may change with the reconfiguration of classes.
He said it has been hard to get parent input on the proposed changes and would like to use upcoming fall events at the schools to reach out to school families. “We don’t have a long time-line,” he said. “Practically speaking, we may have to phase this in over several years.”
A few parents of young children in Colrain said they didn’t like the idea of preschool children being the only class left in the school building. They said they would rather have their children attend a school with other classes.
Another suggestion is to present a timeline of when the changes would be made, so that parents don’t have a feeling of uncertainty about where their children will be going to school, or when any changes are coming.