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Date: 4/12/2022
AMHERST – The Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee (ARSC) met on April 5 and discussed a letter sent by the Granby School Committee (GSC) that asked other districts to respond with whether they would be interested in a prospective regionalization.
The letter said that declining enrollment and rising operational costs paired with facility upgrades have led the Granby Finance Committee to “consistently inquire about the potential for regionalizing with another district for students in Grades 7-12.” Granby, a 15-minute car ride to Amherst through the Mount Holyoke Range State Park, also asked several surrounding districts including Hadley, Ludlow and Ware.
Any possible interest from the ARSC was shut out with the committee unconvinced that the GSC has committed to regionalization themselves. Amherst Superintendent Michael Morris introduced the letter but added that regionalization takes a tremendous amount of time and effort that he ultimately doesn’t think it is the best move right now.
Committee member Peter Demling agreed with Morris’ notion of regionalization being a tricky task, pulling from his experience as the chair of a regional school district a few years back. Still, Demling was initially intrigued by the request. He said they do not have a ton of control over things that affect the budget like state-level funding or enrollment, despite the committee’s best efforts to boost enrollment. Demling said Granby’s Grade 7-12 enrollment numbers would almost match what Amherst has lost in recent years but also pointed out what would turn out to be the consensus concern of all members.
“I don’t think I would be comfortable even committing to exploring [regionalization] given that the Granby School Committee isn’t comfortable stating that they’re committing to exploring it,” Demling said. “I would think that for this to be productive at all, you would at least want their school committee to be interested in exploring it. I don’t feel like it’s in the best interest of our region to wade in the middle of a discussion that doesn’t seem to have cohesion yet in Granby.”
Committee member Irv Rhodes followed up Demling’s comments.
“It always amazes me that a community school district would send out a letter like that. It’s astounding to me,” Rhodes said. “If you really want to talk, then the least you should have in the letter is ‘We are committed to talking about this in a very serious manner.’ This letter was something like, why even send it out?”
Committee member Allison McDonald shared Demling’s initial interest in the prospect of regionalization but was dubious upon reading the request in the letter.
“When I read the letter, it struck me as interesting, to say the least,” McDonald said. “Essentially they’re saying, ‘Hey, do you want to team up? Just to be clear, we don’t want to team up with any other school district but we’re being asked to ask people.’ It just doesn’t seem like it would be a productive project for us to wade into if the folks that we’d need to be partnering with aren’t really interested either.”
The letter noted that the Granby Finance Committee has requested the town to hire a consultant to “explore the viability of all potential educational options, including regionalization, available to our students in Grades 7-12.” The letter included a link to a Google survey that simply asks if the responding district is interested or not and leaves two prompts for additional information, comments or questions. If the ARSC is to even discuss regionalization, they require more certainty out of Granby.
Granby Superintendent Stephen Sullivan did not immediately respond for comment.