SPRINGFIELD: School options heard

District report discussed

By Amber Cox, Staff Writer
   SPRINGFIELD — A flood of residents in “Save our School” T-shirts filled the Springfield Township Elementary School cafeteria May 24 to hear the results of the feasibility study.
   About 70 residents, staff and parents attended the meeting to hear the options that include increasing shared services or establishing a send-receive relationship with either North Hanover or Chesterfield. All three schools send their students to the Northern Burlington Regional School District for grades seven to 12.
   Talks of the schools options began in the fall when interim superintendent Joseph Miller presented four options for the one school district.
   ”One of them was to maintain the status quo and continue to operate basically as we are today,” he said. “The second was to increase the level of shared services that we have with other area school districts in order to save funds. The third was to investigate the establishment of a sending-receiving relationship with a neighboring school district, and by word of explanation a send-receive relationship is where one district sends its students and they are received by another district. The fourth option was to investigate a consolidation or regionalization of one or more area school districts.”
   Mr. Miller said that after presenting the board with the options it decided it needed more information and awarded a $17,500 contract to Educational Information and Resource Center (EIRC) to perform a study.
   The presentation by EIRC’s Bruce Kuzminski and Wayne Thomas revealed that it would be more costly to send students to North Hanover and the students would also be sent to different schools within the district, depending on their grade level.
   Sending students to Chesterfield would save residents assessed at $300,000 almost $400 per year in taxes but according to the study’s estimates there could be capacity issues as soon as 2012-13 if Springfield students were to enter into the district.
   Mr. Kuzminski and Mr. Thomas explained that if the school were to become a non-operating district there would still be a cost to maintain the building and insure it.
   ”(Under a send-receive relationship) since you only have one school and you’re sending the entire population of the school to another school, it would become what’s called a non-operating school district,” Mr. Thomas said. “A non-operating school district is an endangered species. Back in 2009 there were 26 non-operating school districts, the Department of Education was able to do away with 13 of them.”
   The board would also have to hire a business administrator, at least part time, to handle the payment of bills, which would include maintenance, insurance, transportation for the students and tuition costs.
   However, if the school were to remain open a number of improvements must be made to the building to cover any safety issues. In 2010 a referendum failed to fund gym renovations, drainage work, roof replacement, electrical and security system upgrades, parking lot lighting, technology upgrades, new fire sprinklers, new generator and boiler and a ventilation system replacement.
   Mr. Miller agreed with the study, saying that if the school were to remain open those improvements would have to be done as soon as possible.
   If the board were to enter into a send-receive relationship the population of Springfield students would have to make up 10 percent of the receiving district’s enrollment in order to have one person from Springfield on the receiving school board. That person would only be able to vote on matters specifically pertaining to Springfield students.
   ”I don’t see a great benefit for a $300 savings where we’re going to only have one person on the board of education,” resident Bill Seitz said. “We’re going to lose a lot of say about what happens, one person is one vote.”
   Debt service under a send-receive relationship is also different for the sending district. The sending district would only pay on the interest of the debt.
   ”In the case of debt service the principal on the debt service is not a factor in the tuition cost; however, the interest is,” Mr. Thomas said. “The rationale behind that is simply that the receiving district will benefit forever and ever on whatever it is that, that debt service is funding. A sending district will receive that benefit only as long as it is in a sending-receiving relationship and its students are maintaining the receiving district’s school.”
   The cost savings that the district would see by increasing its shared services were not explained because it would take another study and the board would have to seriously look at what services it wants to share.
   Mr. Thomas said the shared services aspect is very market driven.
   Residents and staff urged the board to keep the school open.
   ”I feel very blessed to call myself a teacher a Springfield Township Elementary school, not at North Hanover and not at Chesterfield but here where our kids feel like we have a family and our teachers feel like we have a family,” teacher Christine Skinner said.
   Resident Fred Bryan said the money in his pocket is for the children in his district to go to the Springfield School.
   ”When we stop believing in what we have here you lose all concept of your life,” he said. “That’s why you’re here. Invest more into it, keep what you have and keep it going. I trust the board to do the right thing. If you took all 3,000 people in this town and everybody took $100 our of their pockets we would be ahead of the game because we would have that invested.”
   Mr. Miller said the board is reviewing the full-report and will likely discuss all of the findings at the June 21 meeting. The full-report should also be made public following that meeting.