NORTHFIELD — The Pioneer Valley Regional School District may need to make some changes this spring, the HEART Committee (Honest Education and Retaining Trust) seemed to suggest, when it publicized data forecasting a financial deficit of at least $3 million by 2023, and analyses on how much the district would save by closing Warwick Community School and Leyden’s Pearl Rhodes Elementary School.
Anticipating questions from the community, the committee is hosting a public forum on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Pioneer Valley Regional School cafeteria.
“Nothing is decided,” said Stephen Hemman, one of the HEART Committee’s consultants for the study. “We’re just saying, we have to move forward with something.”
The forum will start with a presentation from consultants, explaining how the projected deficit was calculated, which includes data on state financial aid and local spending, Hemman said. That will be followed by a discussion on the school closure analyses.
The data will be more detailed than what was available at the HEART Committee’s meeting last week, Hemman said. The analyses assume that if one or both of the elementary schools in Leyden and Warwick were closed, the students would be sent to Bernardston Elementary School and Northfield Elementary School, respectively, and there would be expenses associated, like rehiring at least some of the teachers from the smaller schools.
The consultants will also present recommendations for school closure strategies, which they did not discuss when they originally presented the data to the HEART Committee. Those may include options like closing one school next year and waiting another year to close the second, Hemman said, although he declined to give much detail before the forum on what other options there may be.
Attendees at the forum will have opportunities to ask questions. Community feedback will likely influence the School Committee and HEART Committee in their decisions, but Hemman said that it will not affect the remaining course of the consultants’ study.
The consultants are still investigating possibilities for combining Pioneer’s administrative functions with a neighboring school district, mostly likely Gill-Montague, but that information will not be ready in time for this forum.
The consultants are also still working with the HEART Committee on re-writing the district agreement. So far the most major changes are an addition of term limits for School Committee members and a specific process for closing schools.
The HEART Committee expects to have the new agreement ready in time for the district’s four member towns to approve it at their spring town meetings. In that case, the School Committee would be able to close school as soon as this summer, if necessary.
Contact Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 ex 261.