Dr. Maureen Marshall, acting Executive
Director of the Massachusetts Association Regional Schools (right),
speaks with members of the Phillipston Selectboard Wednesday night
regarding proposed changes in the Narragansett Regional School District
district agreement. (Seated at table, left to right) Board Vice Chair
John Telepciak, Chair Kim Pratt, and Clerk Terry Dymek. GREG VINE
For the Athol Daily News
Published: 7/14/2019 9:45:07 PM
PHILLIPSTON – An article on the July 31 special town meeting warrant
calls for changes in the Narragansett Regional School District agreement
between the towns of Phillipston and Templeton. The most significant
change would require that all children in kindergarten through grade
five attend school in the community in which they reside. The district
school committee would be able, by a simple majority vote, to assign
students from one community to a school in the other member town in the
event of an emergency that leads to the complete or partial shutdown of
their home school. Students could also be reassigned if they require
specialized educational services or physical accommodations unavailable
in their community.
In addition, parents could ask that their
child be sent to an out-of-town school, but such a move would require
the approval of the superintendent.
Dr. Maureen Marshall, acting
Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association Regional Schools,
met with parents and members of the Selectboard at their meeting
Wednesday night.
Marshall said she was told by board Chair Kim
Pratt that some parents were actually hoping to pull Phillipston
Memorial Elementary School out of the district agreement.
“Withdrawing pre-K to five is one option,” she said, “which would
leave you regionalized – grades six through 12 – in the Narragansett
School District, but functioning on your own as the school district
which would be known, I guess, as Phillipston Public Schools.”
“Now,
this sounds simple on its face,” she continued. “No big deal. Well, it
is a big deal, because then all of the administrative functions –
special ed, all the management of all the programming, all the forms you
need to fill out, reports you need to fill out – that’s all stuff the
central office does. All the management of payroll, of your retirement
benefits – all that is done at the regional level. You would have
responsibility in your local community to do all of that.”
Marshall
said the town would also be responsible for filling positions such as
special education director and school nurses. In addition to picking up a
number of employees, she said, the town would also have to provide
their health insurance. At the same time, the town would have to
navigate a course for changes in working conditions and benefits for
people whose pay and benefits have already been collectively bargained.
“You would see resistance to leaving their bargaining unit and the protections they have,” she added.
“Withdrawing
pre-K to five not only would require state intervention – working with
the state on a huge change in your regional agreement – but it would
also create a lot of additional cost for the community; including
lawyers as you withdrew, and lawyers to negotiate new contracts with the
collective bargaining unit.”
“If you were to even contemplate
withdrawing completely and being a pre-K to 12 district,” Marshall
cautioned, “I would say take all of what I said times two. That would be
a huge responsibility for you. You don’t even have the buildings to
house the population.”
“You could also seek to withdraw,” she
said, “and seek to become involved with another regional school district
or, say, with the Gardner public schools, or whatever.”
Marshall said, in her experience, most towns don’t pull completely out of a district agreement.
She
also pointed out that, with declining population and, therefore,
declining enrollment in public schools, the state is keen to see more –
not less – regionalization.
“The smaller schools are getting
smaller, and the state is pressuring us to do more regionalization,” she
explained. “They would love to see Quabbin and Narragansett combine,
I’m sure. There’s so much that could be saved by doing that. It would be
a massive region, but it would be much more cost-effective, no doubt
about it.”
Ultimately, said Marshall, any changes in a district
agreement must be approved by the state Dept. of Elementary and
Secondary Education.
If Phillipston voters approve the proposed
change in the district agreement on July 31, the question will have to
then go before a town meeting in Templeton. It’s not known at the moment
when Templeton would possibly take up the matter. In the meantime, the
proposal will be sent to DESE in hopes of determining the state’s likely
reaction to the change, should both communities approve the measure.
| 
ReplyDelete“The smaller schools are getting smaller, and the state is pressuring us to do more regionalization,” she explained. “They would love to see Quabbin and Narragansett combine, I’m sure. There’s so much that could be saved by doing that. It would be a massive region, but it would be much more cost-effective, no doubt about it.”
Right, because the state would pay.....?????................."subject to appropriation"