WEST AMWELL: PK-12 district suggested for South County

By John Tredrea, Special Writer
   WEST AMWELL — Last night (Wednesday), the Princeton consulting firm, Porzio Bromberg & Newman, was scheduled to present the long-awaited schools regionalization feasibility study report to officials and citizens of the South County area at South Hunterdon Regional High School.
   The complete contents of “A Feasibility Study to Dissolve the South Hunterdon Regional School District” can be found online at: http://www.southcountyregionalization.com/.
   On July 21, the South Hunterdon Regional High School Board of Education voted to hire Porzio Bromberg & Newman to do the study to determine if there are financial and/or educational benefits in blending the four existing school districts — Lambertville Public School, South Hunterdon Regional, Stockton Borough School and West Amwell Elementary — into one.
   The feasibility study — the contents of which were aired after press time — states that combining the four districts into one district is the future course that makes the most educational sense.
   The Porzio Bromberg & Newman report says — at the end of the Conclusion section on Pages 105-106 — that: “We conclude that the overall analysis of the present organizational structure and the viable options from an educational and financial standpoint suggest that the three communities should pursue dissolution of South Hunterdon Regional (High School district) in order to form a three-community PK-12 regional school district that educates PK-12 students from West Amwell, Stockton, and Lambertville.
   ”However, since the savings are small to each community, we recommend that you study further the impact on combining salary guides and that these decisions be based upon the potential educational benefits rather than finances alone.” In the study’s Conclusion section, it says the creation of one regional school district would bring only small financial savings to each of the communities involved.
   But, “from an educational standpoint, the PK-12 structure provides the best opportunity for PK-12 program articulation, continuity and consistency in a spiraling curriculum,” the study states. “Therefore, the establishment of a “new” PK-12 regional school district to service the communities of Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell is viewed as the most appropriate action. The new PK-12 school district would be one of the smallest in the state, but has the potential of providing a high-quality educational program to the students of the communities it serves.”
   The study says leaders of the new school district should consider establishing an Early Childhood Education Center at the Stockton Borough School site and the relocation of all sixth-grade students to South Hunterdon Regional High School. “These two recommendations are targeted at both enhancements to the educational program and as a means by which the school district might be able to achieve additional financial savings and possible revenue enhancement,” the study notes.
   On the financial side of the regionalization issue, the study says “the largest savings would result from a dissolution of the current regional (SHRHS) district with the formation of a three-district PK-12 regional.
   ”However, because of the disparities in the teacher’s salary guides, there would likely be large increases in salaries when a new contract is negotiated. When this is combined with the potential loss in federal aid, there would likely be no significant savings to any of the three districts.
   ”Though it is possible that the establishment of an Early Childhood Education Center and the relocation of sixth-graders might improve the financial results slightly, the improvement is not expected to change the overall financial conclusion.”
   THE CONCLUSION section also states:
   — “The state’s direction is to reduce the number of operating school districts while creating PK-12 structures where practicable. All of the proposed alternative configurations (in the report) accomplish this goal. In light of the fact that all students will likely remain in the same buildings with generally the same teachers, they can be expected to continue to experience educational success in all of the alternative configurations.
   — “Upon dissolution of South Hunterdon Regional and the formation of a new three-community PK-12 regional school district, and any action taken by the new board to reconfigure the grades as recommended in the educational section of the report, students in grades seven-12 from West Amwell, Lambertville, and Stockton may continue to be educated in the same building.
   — “Children in grades PK-6 also would continue to be educated at their respective current locations.” However, “If the elementary districts decide to relocate their sixth-grade students and integrate them into the middle school program at South Hunterdon Regional, there would be an additional 60-70 students at the high school. South Hunterdon Regional would be able to accommodate the additional children based on the building’s educational capacity.”
   — In addition: “Each of the school districts included in this study is currently delivering an educational program that adequately addresses the New Jersey’s Core Curriculum Content Standards. The delivery method for the educational programs in each of the elementary schools is quite different. Recent initiatives in the areas of curriculum development, articulation, and coordination are helping the districts move toward a more unified education program designed to better ‘connect’ with the middle and high school programs offered at South Hunterdon Regional where their students end up in seventh grade.”
   THE FEASIBILITY STUDY, which was required by the state as a first step toward regionalization, was undertaken for the purpose of providing a realistic understanding of the educational and financial benefits and disadvantages of unifying the four local districts.
   In April, voters in Lambertville, Stockton and West Amwell OK’d a school election ballot question: “Be it resolved that there should be raised an additional $50,000 for general funds in the same school year (2011-12). These taxes will be used exclusively to fund a formal feasibility study to examine whether there are educational benefits to the students and/or financial savings to the taxpayers by creating a South Hunterdon Pre-K through 12th-grade all-purpose school district (of about 870 students). Approval of these taxes will not result in a permanent increase in the district’s tax levy.”
   In July, Porzio, Bromberg and Newman was hired to do the study for $44,000. The board’s July 21 vote authorized spending up to $50,000 on the study.
   Members of the South Hunterdon County School District Regionalization Committee include: members of the Lambertville, SHRHS, Stockton and West Amwell school boards, as well as representatives from each of the three local communities. They are: Lambertville — Grant Miller (LPS), John Livingston (LPS), Vice Chairman Steve Wolock (community resident and former member of the LPS board), Karen Conlon (community resident) and Chairman Seiter (SHRHS); West Amwell — Peter Gasparro (WAES), John Dupuis (WAES), Cindy Magill (community resident), Nicole Claus (SHRHS) and Dave Beaumont (community resident); Stockton — Jim Gallagher and Diane Walker-Torkelson (both board members).
    Ruth Luse, managing editor, contributed to this account.