By Ruth Luse, Managing Editor
I agree with the four school board members who authored this week’s GUEST OPINION about the need for a regionalization feasibility study.
Voters in Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell should say yes to spending $50,000 in general funds (2011-12) for a formal feasibility study that would look at the possible educational and financial benefits of creating a Pre-K-12 (regional) school district — one that would serve a student population that now totals about 870.
The time definitely has come to tackle this issue once again. Hopefully, funding for the study will be OK’d April 27, so decisions on regionalization can be made in the near future.
Long before I joined the staff of The Beacon just a few years ago, I knew there were four schools serving the children in The Beacon news coverage area and that each one had its own school board and school building. Only one of the four schools, I learned, served students from all three communities in grades seven-12 and that is South Hunterdon Regional High School.
Until 1965 when two school districts (Hopewell Borough and Hopewell Township) regionalized, nearby Hopewell Valley had a similar situation. So, I often wondered why schools in the southern area of Hunterdon County had not done the same.
So, I scanned The Beacon’s archives and discovered the following:
— In June 2000, a Beacon writer reported that talk about regionalization of South Hunterdon schools “is reverberating throughout the communities. It’s an issue that administrators and school board members at South Hunterdon Regional High School and its three sending districts — Lambertville, West Amwell and Stockton — have been grappling with for decades.”
South’s superintendent said he could trace the discussion back to the 1970s and “an old quasi-feasibility study” conducted to learn if it would be more efficient to consolidate to a K-12 district.
” While school officials say they are open to a renewed discussion, the stumbling block to regionalization has been a reluctance among the districts to relinquish autonomy or “home rule,” a Lambertville school official said.
”But as education costs rise and state aid to the so-called ‘wealthy’ districts dwindles, the state is encouraging districts to explore regionalization.”
At that time, it seems, a district could apply for grants or loans to fund a feasibility study —through the Regional Efficiency Development (REDI) program. So, the Lambertville school board agreed to get the ball rolling and authorized an official to start a dialogue with Stockton, West Amwell and South Hunterdon board presidents.
— A year later, in July 2001 (now almost 10 years ago), the Beacon editor asked: “We wonder why a major study of regionalization — called for by The Beacon, as well as by residents for several years — has not been done?”
— In April 2002, regionalization and maintaining small class sizes were among topics addressed by candidates for seats on the Lambertville school board.
One candidate said: “The biggest issues facing LPS are declining enrollment and continually reduced state aid.”
Another said: “My concerns for Lambertville are the needs to ensure both greater cost efficiency and public accountability. One option we should actively explore in order to lower the costs per pupil, as well as to ensure a closer alignment between curriculum, instruction and assessment up through the grade levels, is to consolidate or regionalize with other surrounding districts.”
Still another commented: “The option to regionalize Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell into one cohesive K-12 district has been discussed, but I want to clarify that it must be a collective decision among all three districts before regionalization can move forward.”
— In November 2004, the Beacon reported that local school officials had “authorized the state Department of Education to conduct an impact study to determine the financial effects of regionalization.”
Superintendents, administrators and board of education members from the four local districts had met with the Hunterdon County superintendent of schools and the Hunterdon County business administrator.
Then South Hunterdon Superintendent Lisa Brady called the discussion a way of “exploring the pros and cons of regionalization.”
The state, The Beacon report said, “would conduct the impact study at no charge to local districts.” The discussion would begin again in January (2005) when local school leaders planned to meet with representatives of the state Department of Education and three firms that conducted feasibility studies.
A South board member said the district should make sure a decision to regionalize is “not just financially feasible, but also educationally feasible.”
— In March 2005, a Beacon writer reported: “Local education officials last week decided against combining three elementary schools with South Hunterdon Regional High School to create one K-12 school district because they said it would be more expensive for taxpayers.”
Economically, the regionalization plan would not represent a savings, according to Superintendent Brady. “Based on information shared with the exploration committee over three meetings, the committee unanimously decided to table further discussions on regionalization at this time,” Ms. Brady said.
— If anything else of note took place between then and now — except for the decision to put a question on April 27 ballots, I am not aware of it. I also am not in a position to predict what the study’s findings would be, if voters OK the funding April 27, but I urge those who go to the polls that day to say yes to Ballot Question No. 2.

