Published 7:06 pm, Friday, February 21, 2014
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That's why it's been so troubling for me over the years to witness the deep and growing divisions within the district over the issue of local elementary schools versus consolidation.
Growing up in New Milford, I hung out and played sports with kids from Bridgewater, Roxbury and Washington and became lifelong friends with a good number of them.
So that has made it even more difficult for me to see how the local vs. consolidated elementary school issue has pitted town against town, neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend.
To be sure, this is not a new issue. There has been grumbling in some quarters -- most notably in Washington -- ever since the 1967 regionalization plan guaranteed local schools in all three towns.
As an outgrowth of that discontent, there have been several concerted efforts -- again, centered in Washington -- over the past three decades to close the three elementary schools (Burnham School in Bridgewater, Booth Free School in Roxbury and Washington Primary School) and create a consolidated elementary school on the Shepaug Valley Middle High School campus in Washington.
A majority of Washington residents have traditionally supported consolidation -- in the interest of reduced costs and purportedly superior educational offerings -- while Bridgewater (adamantly) and Roxbury have consistently blocked the closing of their local elementary schools.
In fact, the town of Bridgewater felt so strongly about keeping Burnham School open that it took legal action and gained a 2009 state Supreme Court ruling confirming that all three towns -- not a majority of voters in the district -- would have to approve a change in the regional plan guaranteeing local schools.
I've always felt it was pretty easy for the Washington proponents to back consolidation. After all, the elementary school would be within their borders, their young kids wouldn't be the ones with the long bus rides, and it wasn't their town that would be the first in the state of Connecticut without a school.
I've always been puzzled why there hasn't been more empathy from Washington residents (and Board of Education members) for their neighbors and a greater understanding of why Bridgewater and Roxbury would want to keep their local schools open.
And I've long wondered how the vote would go in Washington if the shoe were on the other foot and a proposal were floated, for example, to close Washington Primary School and send WPS students to Bridgewater and/or Roxbury in sort of a reverse-consolidation endeavor.
But here we are again, with another consolidation plan being floated for a new K-5 school on the Shepaug Valley campus, a proposal out there to amend the regional plan to allow for consolidation, and another district-wide referendum coming up on a date soon to be determined by the Region 12 board.
To be fair, Region 12 faces serious challenges, with rapidly declining student enrollment and spiraling per-pupil expenditures casting doubt about the future of the district. And enlightened solutions have to be found.
But the residents of the Region 12 community need to be asking themselves a number of important questions before going to the polls on referendum day:
Do they really want to close the top two schools (Burnham and Booth Free) in their 39-schoolDistrict Resource Group and a third highly rated school (Washington Primary) where kids are getting excellent educations?
Do they really want to shut down schools in great, close-knit towns like Bridgewater and Roxbury where the schools are such an important part of the fabric of the community?
Do they really want Bridgewater and Roxbury to be the only towns in the state without a school -- and face the virtually inevitable threat to property values and almost-certain dramatic changes in demographics?
Do they really want to spend tens of millions of dollars on a new consolidated elementary school when the projected student population is so alarmingly low?
I guess residents will provide answers to those questions with their votes on referendum day, and the chips will fall where they may, with the future direction of the Region 12 school district hanging in the balance.
Art Cummings is editor emeritus of The News-Times. He can be contacted at 203-731-3351 or at acummings@newstimes.com
