ROWE — Voters at Rowe’s annual town meeting decided against rejoining the Mohawk Regional School District on Monday night.
The move comes after Rowe left the district for financial reasons 35 years ago. Debate and then paper ballot on the issue lasted for about one hour during Monday night’s meeting.
Most of the other eight Mohawk Regional District towns had approved Rowe rejoining the district through their town meetings this spring.
Those who spoke against the moved cited the murky future of the school-aged population in Rowe. Joining the district would mean the town would have to contribute to capital improvements of the district even if there are no Rowe students attending Mohawk schools.
Some town meeting members had concerns that it would require a unanimous vote by the own member towns to leave the district if they wanted to again.
“If we go forward, we may not be able to come back,” Paul McLatchy III said.
He said that it’s become harder to predict the future of education in the town and that this may not be the right time to make a decision like this.
“We have a system that seems to be working right now,” he said.
Susie Zavotka, chair of the Rowe School Committee, said the committee voted unanimously to recommend that the town rejoin the district at the 7 through 12 level while retaining its own elementary school, something they said now makes more financial sense for the town now.
She said that this has been researched and discussed by the school committee for about a year.
Zavotka said that in the past, the town has given money to Mohawk district improvements because Rowe students were going to those school.
“The reality is Mohawk is our community school for grade seven through 12,” she said. “Whether we tuition or join, it is still our community school.”
The town left the district about 35 years ago, when the financial calculations at the state level made more sense for the town to be outside the district. The town pays tuition to the Mohawk district for the students that go to its schools.
“It made sense at the time, it clearly does not make sense anymore,” Lisa Danek Burke, member of the Rowe School Committee, said.
She and Zavotka both spoke of benefits beyond financial savings, saying that part of it was belonging to the Mohawk community.
“If we intend to have our students going to Mohawk, we should be a part of Mohawk,” Danek Burke said.
If all nine approved the measure, Rowe would have become a secondary education Mohawk district member in July 2017. And district officials believe this would have saved all the towns money.
Rowe was a founding member of the Mohawk district in 1967, but was asked to withdraw in 1982, because its high industrial property valuations for the Yankee Rowe Atomic Plant and the Bear Swamp hydroelectric facility resulted in lower state funding for the entire school district.
But the state funding formula for school districts has changed since then, with Chapter 70 state education funding calculated on a per-town — not a per-district basis.
The Rowe Elementary School would have not become part of the Mohawk Trail Regional School District.
Reach Miranda Davis at 413-772-0261, ext. 280 or mdavis@recorder.com.