HUNTINGTON – Members of the Gateway Towns Advisory Committee met Saturday morning at Huntington’s Stanton Hall.
As it as been for the last few months, the top item on the committee’s agenda was the Town of Worthington’s planned withdrawal from the Gateway Regional School District.
Gateway Superintendent Dr. David Hopson brought the committee up to speed, recapping last week’s school committee meeting and his conversation with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“The DESE did indicate that they will be reviewing the regional agreement and be looking for ammendments to update the regional agreement should Worthington be allowed to withdraw from the district,” said Hopson, which prompted GTAC member Derrick Mason of Russell to ask when those amendments would be put in place.
“I would imagine – it’s up to the school committee – but I’d imagine they would probably be late summer, early fall,” he said, adding that the amendments would deal with the number of towns in the district and school committee members. “DESE did indicate that they would also have to address the number of representatives on the school committee to meet the requirement of the ‘one man, one vote’ issue.”
Hopson said that he was told the DESE would help “push the effort to get those amendments” but “what that means, who knows?”
GTAC member Darlene McVeigh of Huntington then asked Hopson when Worthington would notify they are leaving the district.
“DESE said to send them, if they thought they had already made that motion in town, and they would determine whether that was an official notification or not,” Hopson said. “If not, they would tell Worthington they would have to revote and send that to the school committee.”
Hopson said that the initial vote occurred two years ago to ask the school committee to allow Worthington to withdraw and to put an amendment on the regional agreement.
“Whether that counts as asking for a withdrawal or not, I’m not aware,” he said, adding that the town moved legislation forward that would allow them to leave, and he was unsure whether DESE or the state will require them to take another vote.
“What role would we like to see GTAC play in driving the process? Can we influence the process at the school committee level? At the DESE level?” Mason asked.
“If we are to have conversations with DESE, it would be along those lines. Just to get support from the selectboards pushing for the needs conference first,” Montgomery Selectman Dan Jacques said. “We need to know the decision is going to be sustainable. To make the decision based on an educational plan… it could work, it could not.”
“Without a long-term assessment, including all the costs, and I know money keeps coming back up,” he said. “It’s a catalyst, but theres just so many other different pieces that go along with it that it drives. That is what it keeps coming back to.”
Jacques suggested that GTAC can use their influence to push a message through the media, as well as relay thoughts and concerns to the DESE and their legislators.
“Our advocacy may be our best role,” he said.
Mason asked whether the committee could convene a forum of selectboards, school committee members and the DESE to analyze the “big picture”, which prompted Hopson to suggest a different course of action.
“I think, given the timeline, the best thing you can do is pressure DESE to start that needs or reorganization conference because they’re the ones that’re going to run it (DESE),” he said. “So you can run a forum and conference, but would DESE take that input because it’s not official?”
McVeigh stated her doubts about the education plan the committee is set to work on later this month, calling it a “useless piece of paper.”
“I don’t want to see Gateway become some kind of an educational experiment, because the only people that are really going to suffer – and suffer badly – are going to be the kids,” she said. “Nobody is paying attention. They’ve put the cart before the horse. I think we need to hopefully get DESE to understand that it’s critical to get all this information in one place.”
“An educational plan is an educational plan, but DESE should be determining whether it’s sustainable,” McVeigh said. “This is like turning an ocean liner around. You just don’t turn those things around that quickly in education.”
McVeigh asked whether GTAC should attend the next school committee meeting, to which Jacques threw out the suggestion of asking school committee members Anne-Marie Buikus of Montgomery and Ruth Kennedy of Russell, who were both present Saturday, to consider speaking to the committee about relaying the GTAC’s desire to force a needs assessment prior to the DESE’s educational review.
“This needs conference would go beyond the Worthington withdrawal. It would touch on everything that the state is involved in, that we’re involved in, that the town is working together, even the way the school committee works. Everything on how the school functions,” he said. “It’s going to involve a thorough, comprehensive review. At any point, whether we were going through a withdrawal, this is something that would be welcome especially if it has the potential of bringing state issues to light.”
“We’re certainly looking beyond just issues regarding the Worthington withdrawal, in terms of GTAC,” said Jacques. “We want to work with DESE to define how things are going to move forward with respect to the educational plan review and the needs assessments.”
