WILBRAHAM – Though decisions haven’t been made regarding whether or not Hampden’s middle school, Thornton W. Burgess (TWB), will combine with Wilbraham Middle School (WMS), Hampden Wilbraham Regional School District (HWRSD) Superintendent Al Ganem is in support of the merge.

“Really what we want to happen, and again I appreciate people in the community want to keep their schools, but the only thing that’s happening is we’re having declining enrollment.  So instead of us having to financially keep two buildings open, what we’re hoping to do is combine them and be able to provide and put all the support in one school and have all the kids there,” Ganem said.

Minnechaug Regional High School was founded in 1959 and is considered by many a successfully regionalized school in the area. Ganem suggests that the quality of education coming from HWRSD would only strengthen if the middle schools combined.

“Do I think it would be successful? Yes.  Do I think we could provide an unbelievable education if we had both towns with all of the kids coming together? Yes, because we’re doing it here at the high school,” he said.

Last fall an article was passed that Hampden students would be able to cross town lines and transfer to a Wilbraham school should they choose.  According to Ganem, over the past year 50 students have transferred from TWB into WMS, only effecting TWB’s low enrollment further.

In not only elementary and secondary education facilities but post-secondary education establishments as well, low enrollment for programs and courses causes them to be cut from budgets.  Ganem argues that if the schools combined, not only would money be saved, but more programming would be available to students too.

“If you don’t have enough students, you can’t provide a lot of things we provide, you need numbers for some things to take place, and that happens no matter what school you’re at.  Even at the high school, if you don’t have enough students wanting to take a certain section of something, then you don’t offer that.  By unifying, we’d be able to offer more things programmatically as well.”

Whether Wilbraham and Hampden decide to come together and combine the schools or keep them separate, Ganem believes that communication between the two towns is more important than ever.  Regardless of the merge or not, Ganem is sure the students will still receive a valuable education.

“The number one thing that our job is, no matter what takes place, is we’re going to provide our students with a high quality education,” he added, “Do we think if we combined them it would be better?  Yes, but no matter what the final decision is, I think that our goal as educators and my goal as superintendent is to make sure that our students are getting a great education.”