WILBRAHAM – The regional School Committee met Tuesday night to watch a special presentation by Steve Hemman, assistant director of Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools. Hemman revealed making changes could mean a $500,000 to $700,000 loss in funds the towns would otherwise receive from the state as well as the need for three separate school committees, three offices, and three superintendents.  

Hemman presented to the School Committee as well as Hampden and Wilbraham residents a PowerPoint regarding the process of de-regionalization.

According to information provided by Hemman, in 1949 Chapter 71 allowed towns to regionalize school districts.  The main reason for regionalization is usually that  school districts were becoming too small, as enrollment was low.  

In the case of Hampden and Wilbraham, the Middle School Task Force made a recommendation to unify the two middle schools and regionalize, as Thornton W. Burgess (TWB) currently has low enrollment.  Following this recommendation, Hampden voted to not amend the current agreement which would keep the middle schools separate, while Wilbraham voted to amend in favor of combining the two town’s middle schools.

While plenty of Western Massachusetts towns have their own school districts, Hemman noted that he is from Westminster and separate districts in his area are drastically declining in favor of regionalization.

In order to keep TWB open and de-regionalize, Hemman suggested a thorough budget must be formulated.  After the budget is created, a dollar amount will be determined that would be necessary to keep TWB open.   If TWB stays open, the town of Hampden would have to pay extra to keep the building open.  In order to do that, Hemman said, the regional agreement would have to be changed.

To change a region, an Amendment Committee must be formed.  The Amendment Committee would go through the regional agreement and write an amendment to change the region.  If an agreement is going to be changed, it has to be done six months prior to July 1 of the year that it will take affect.

If the region is changed, Hemman noted that costs would change.  Should this occur and the towns did break away and form elementary districts, they would lose regional transportation.  Currently, $1.3 million per year is provided by the state for transportation.  If the division occurred, “you’d lose $5, 6, 700,000,” Hemman said.  This figure is a percentage of the original $1.3 million reimbursement.

 The amendment would then have to be approved by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.  If the amendment was approved, Hemman noted there would then have to be three School Committees, three separate offices, and three separate superintendents.  One would be for the regional high school, the second for Wilbraham’s middle and elementary schools, and the third for Hampden’s schools. A member of the current School Committee interjected that in the past, two School Committees can function along with only two Superintendent’s, rather than three as Hemman mentioned.  However, Hemman said three is necessary.

The towns will be responsible for their own outstanding debt should they choose to change the region.  There would be a distribution of assets within the regional agreement, and that would also have to be approved by the Commissioner of Education.  

Each town would then vote for the approval to change the regional agreement.  If the regional agreement fails, the current agreement would stay in place until both towns pass the amendment.

Finally, Hemman said that if the region was changed, the towns would now have to deal with budgets, collective bargain agreements, and separate agreements for teachers and their support staff that would have to be negotiated.  New policies would also have to be established.  The issues with that Hemman sees is how much it would cost the town and a potential loss of revenue.   

Additionally, in the elementary schools, if the schools act as non-operating districts, “everything has to be changed MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System), SIMS which is student information management systems, it’s quite a process if you want to de-regionalize.”

A resident raised a question to Hemman about how many towns have successfully de-regionalized in Massachusetts.  He said that he knew of only one. Plymouth was once a part of Silver Lake Regional School District and when Plymouth grew much larger, they decided to de-regionalize.