Dr. David Hopson
Since the renewal of the Gateway Towns Advisory Committee, spearheaded by the Town of Russell, I’ve been attending meetings along with others from throughout the district. I certainly give these town officials much credit for giving up some of their Saturday mornings for the purpose of encouraging town cooperation, looking at regionalizing local services, and reviewing the Gateway Regional School District’s operations and budgets. Despite having made little progress in addressing many of the issues that have been raised—including unfunded mandates, regionalizing services, and gaining economic assistance for the district’s towns—this ‘unofficial’ or ‘ad hoc’ committee has brought forward many issues for consideration.
The major topic for GTAC during the past year has been the potential withdrawal of the Town of Worthington from the Gateway Regional School District. On this topic, GTAC has made some progress among the six remaining towns regarding the potential of sharing legal costs in trying to block Worthington from leaving or, at the very least, ensuring that Worthington pays a fair and equitable share of the district’s capital and accrued costs if they are allowed to withdraw. There are many legal strategies related to these issues and it sounds as though the legal process could be very long and involved, which usually translates to being very expensive in my limited experience.
I give the group credit for trying to get parents and others involved in the process of considering the impact that Worthington leaving will have on taxes and educational opportunities. While the district will continue to support the involvement of parents in the political process, this certainly looks like an uphill battle given the lack of time and energy for most parents to participate in annual town meetings, local government, or even school councils, PTOs and booster clubs. The reality is that even membership in GTAC, whether measured by the number of towns participating, or the number of individuals attending meetings, has not been stellar nor consistent over time.
Perhaps this is due to an idea shared by a new participant at last Saturday’s GTAC meeting. He said that most people considered the Worthington withdrawal to be a done deal because of the legislation passing and being signed into law by the Governor, yielding a feeling of ‘what difference can I make?’ This same individual also thought that a bigger problem facing the district was looking out 10 to 15 years, as the potential viability of the Gateway District may be in doubt. Long-term projections in the number of school-aged children in our towns yields significantly fewer students in the next 15 years. Having already experienced a reduction of children in the towns, and a reduction of students in the schools, we can see why this is a concern for the district. Of course, the Gateway towns are not the only ones facing a shift in the composition of our communities: we see a population reduction in many areas of the Northeast and an even larger reduction in the number of young families and children in areas offering few job opportunities, little growth in industry, and a lack of infrastructure supporting services that many consider essential to modern life. One can look, for example, across New England and see efforts to consolidate school districts, close smaller and often outdated schools, and regionalize town services (911 call centers, emergency response, shared professional staff across several towns, paying consultants rather than hiring local experts, etc.). I don’t have any specific solutions but have seen many ideas tried, and more often than not failing, across the country (one example being Maine’s state-led school district consolidation). Perhaps this isn’t surprising given the political stalemate in D.C., the polarization of political discourse, and an inability to use a common-sense approach to putting peoples’ greater good at the center of the political process.
