Western Mass. students and parents send ‘SOS’ over rural school funding

Parents and students posed for pictures outside Leverett Elementary School on Thursday with signs reading “Leverett Says: Save Our Schools,” while, in South Deerfield, hundreds of Frontier Regional School students gathered in their gymnasium to form the letters SOS.

Both demonstrations were part of the Rural and Declining Enrollment Schools Week of Action, an effort by educators, students and families across western Massachusetts to highlight concerns that the state’s funding system leaves rural districts without the resources they need. Earlier in the week, a similar event took place at Shutesbury Elementary School.

For many families, the issue hits close to home.

Leverett parent Eliza Strickland said the quality of the town’s schools was a major reason she and her family moved from New York City nearly five years ago.

“One of the reasons we chose to move to Leverett was an attraction to this school system,” Strickland said.

Thursday’s action at the school allowed parents and students, joined by staff members, to pose for pictures with signs that had SOS letters set above the image of a life ring buoy.

But with concerns that the state is not doing its part to bolster education, Strickland is seeing stress on the school system.

“Teachers here do so much with minimal revenue from the state,” Strickland said.

Now, the numerous photos will head to Boston.

“The photos will be shared with state organizers of the rural advocacy group, who will in turn share them with state legislators,” said Acadia Strickland, a second grader at the school.

Also greeting families were Andrew Parker-Renga and Tim Shores, both members of the Leverett School Committee.

Parker-Renga said the latest budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 has a funding gap between what the town is obligated to pay teachers — a 4% increase in personnel costs — and the overall budget, which is increasing by 3.5%.

The school is running at the bare minimum. It is the least staffed, yet highest enrollment, school in Union 28, which also includes elementary schools in Shutesbury, Erving and New Salem.

“We have nowhere to go. We keep losing our funding,” said Parker-Renga, who was accompanied by his daughter Adena Renga before she headed off to classes. “We’re now at a breaking point.”

The limited budget is preventing the school from making technological improvements, such as cybersecurity, he said. As treasurer of the Leverett Parent-Teacher Organization, efforts are constant to raise money locally. “But there’s only so much we can do to make up the shortfalls,” Parker-Renga said.

Which is why a change to the formulas at the state level is critical, both in how Chapter 70 is calculated, not taking into account the higher per-pupil costs due to lack of efficiencies of scale, and how rural aid is supposed to make this up.

“Our goal is to not keep asking of the townfolks. It’s unfair for us to pit our interests against each other,” Parker-Renga said.

Yet so much happens at the school, he said, including a Halloween party, a school dance, a watermelon social and a mums sale. The school also hosts Town Meeting, and basketball and pickleball games.

Shores said town officials are aware that school staff members have been paid less and any looming personnel cuts would likely impact paraeducators. Any classroom teachers lost could only be done if classes were combined.

Before Thursday’s action, other Leverett officials, too, noted the limited flexibility in budgets in a community that relies heavily on residential property taxes, with no commercial tax base, and little say in the assessment that has to be paid for the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District, where secondary students are educated.

“When most of your local revenue comes from property taxes and a large portion of the education budget is determined through a regional assessment, there are very few places for a small town to adjust spending,” said Patricia Duffy, who chairs the town’s Selectboard. “In many cases, the elementary school budget becomes one of the only areas the town can directly manage.”

Like other communities in Massachusetts, the town receives money from Chapter 70, the state’s primary education funding formula.

“Rural aid simply helps to correct for that deficiency in Chapter 70 funding,” Phil Carter, chair of Leverett’s Finance Committee, said of the second pool of funding.

Shannon White-Cleveland, superintendent of Union 28, said rural aid is essential to ensuring that students in small communities have access to the same opportunities as students in larger districts.

“It is not supplemental funding; it is foundational funding that ensures rural students receive the same opportunities as their peers elsewhere,” she said.

School leaders also emphasize the central role that rural schools play in their communities.

“Rural districts face structural cost challenges that larger systems simply don’t have, while our schools serve as the heart of community life in small towns,” said Siby Adina, the school principal. “Rural communities face difficult budget choices year after year with rising costs and limited aid.”

Walkout at Frontier

At Frontier Regional School in South Deerfield, the entire student population of about 600 middle and high schoolers left class on Thursday afternoon to gather in the gymnasium. Sporting shades of red, the students and a few teachers stood side by side to form three letters: SOS.

Frontier Superintendent Darius Modestow said the event “brings awareness not only to the state, but also to [the students’] own civic engagement in western Mass.”

“They need to be seen and heard,” he said.

“It’s the students that make the difference. They care and I think their voices are the ones that are important in Boston,” echoed Deerfield Selectboard member Tim Hilchey.

Donning a sign with “Save Our Schools” printed in bright red letters, Hilchey joined the “SOS” formation.

“When I think of red, I think of an ambulance and very urgent and almost life or death — distress,” Frontier senior Julian Adams said. “I think it’s very fitting with ‘SOS.’ … That’s what the situation calls for.”

As vice president of the Frontier Student Council, Adams helped organize the moment with his fellow members. The group plans to send a drone video of the “SOS” event to legislators.

“I don’t think the people in [Boston] understand that $1,000 in the city isn’t the same as $1,000 here, and we need money to keep offering the services that we provide here and to make students thrive at a school like Frontier,” Adams said. “We need equality and equity for every school across the state, not just schools in western Mass, but everywhere rural so every school can have the same opportunities.”

While standing, students waved signs reading, “Conway Grammar School Needs Help,” “Don’t Forget Deerfield,” “We Are One Commonwealth” and “Equity For Rural Schools.”

“We’re such a small school that if one thing gets cut, it really affects the whole school,” said freshman Jimin Ahn, the ninth grade officer on the Student Council.

On March 5, the Frontier School Committee approved a $13.76 million budget for fiscal year 2027 with seven position cuts, including a librarian, to shrink the initial nearly $1 million increase to $482,460.

“Cutting seven of [the positions], especially the librarian, really affects the school atmosphere,” Ahn said.

Student Council President Anna Haskins, who took photos from the top of the bleachers, said the event created a visual of the impact of rural school aid.

“We’re kind of invisible because we’re so rural, and I think that having us all organized in one room, showing that we all care about the same cause because it’s affecting all of us, is really, hopefully, impactful to those at the State House,” Haskins said. “Our fate is in their hands as a school.”