School Superintendent Floats Grade 7-12 Consolidation to Solve Chronic Budget Woes
Photo: istock
Report on the Four Towns Meeting of September 28, 2024
The meeting was held at the Amherst Middle School Library on September 28 and was recorded. The recording can be viewed here.
At her first Four Towns Meeting, new School Superintendent Xiomara Herman presented a preliminary budget analysis showing deficits ranging from $2.2 million to $3.3 million using the same “level service” approach that has been used in the past. She recommended changing to “line item” budgeting initially, followed by restructuring to “performance-based budgeting” to ultimately solve the persistent financial challenges of the Regional School District.
Herman described six scenarios for FY26 with varying bases (starting points from previous years’ budgets) and increases (ranging from 2.5 to 4%), all of which fall short of the projected $38.5 million expenses. With this approach, she noted that, “Regardless of what we do, we are going to be operating at a deficit.” She concluded that the “level services” approach fails to address inefficiencies while line item budgeting is too inflexible and is not linked to performance or outcomes. Performance-based budgeting, she argued, would best meet the needs of students by linking budget decisions to desired outcomes such as achievement rates, graduation rates, attendance rates, and individual student goals.
The primary strategy Herman proposed is to shift from separate middle and high schools to a grade 7 through 12 educational model in the current high school. Under this consolidated model, staff reductions would result in total potential savings of $2.4 million. Staffing cuts would include 1 building leader, 3 professional support staff, 9 clerical positions, 8 maintenance staff, 12 professional (teacher) positions, and 6 support staff.
Additional savings that will also be explored include a one day furlough for all staff, raising the current share of health insurance costs for staff from 20% of the total cost to 25%, and a revised transportation contract involving less mileage, fewer stops, less driver overtime, and bringing some Special Education transportation in house. The net effect of these changes would alter the six scenarios to a best case scenario of a $178K surplus and a worst case scenario of a $618K deficit.
Herman highlighted that Special Education ran $2.5 million over budget last year and that the effect of choice-in students from outside the district should be reassessed. She will also be seeking ways to create programming to keep students in district to reduce the more than $2 million spent each year to cover students attending Charter Schools.
As yet undetermined in this proposal is what to do with the middle school building, which Herman noted is in need of a great deal of work and deferred maintenance. Also uncertain is where Amherst 6th graders would be located as they are currently slotted to move to the middle school by 2026. She explained that the consolidation proposal has not yet been thoroughly defined. She emphasized that “Superman is not coming, there is no white knight” and “cuts are going to have to be made” but made the plea that “Our children deserve the best, but can we at least agree to give them basic?”
Amherst Electeds Responses
Each town’s school committee, finance committee, and Select Board/Town Council members met separately during a breakout session. The discussion by Amherst’s elected officials focused on Special Education. At-large Town Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke asked “Is our Special Education basic or best?” and “Is it just general education students who get basic?” Amherst School Committee Chair Sarah Marshall suggested that schools “could take a tougher line on developing IEPs (Individualized Education Plans).” District 5 Town Councilor Ana Devlin-Gauthier argued that allowing students to choice-in to Amherst benefits the larger community. School Committee member Bridget Hynes noted that Amherst can bill sending districts for special education related costs.
Hynes also reminded the group that the high school used to rank in the top 10% of the state’s districts but is now in the middle of the pack. Hanneke wondered what besides budget is driving this drop in ranking. Marshall suggested that a change in demographics, with more English Language Learners and lower income families, could explain the change in performance. District 3 Town Councilor Hala Lord expressed discomfort with the “scapegoating of these populations” as contributors to the District’s ranking.
Hynes pointed out that a 2019 study of a possible consolidation of the middle school into the high school came with a lower range cost estimate of over $30 million. Hanneke added that the study undertaken at that time called for 7th and 8th graders largely separated from 9th – 12th graders.
When representatives from the towns gathered again to share their initial response to the Herman’s presentation, both Leverett and Shutesbury indicated that they favored the scenario presented that used last year’s 6% increase as the basis for future budgets. This was a higher percentage increase than usual agreed upon to avoid deep staffing cuts. Pelham signaled an openness to what was offered. Hanneke, however, expressed concern over developing future budgets on the 6% increase from FY 25 and said that Amherst could only afford the roughly $300,000 increase last year with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
In answer to questions about enrollment and educator trends, Herman stated that while the high school has the capacity for 3,000 students, the number of students has dropped from 1,346 in 2020 to 1,271 in 2024 while the number of teachers over that same time has risen from 157 to 164 (paraprofessionals dropped from 80 to 75).
Herman indicated that she and her team would further develop the proposals and anticipated presenting a more complete budget and plan in late November or early December.
There is clear and present data that shows Amherst is rapidly losing families, and closing schools at the rate we are is indisputable proof.
I am surprised that there is almost no discussion about what the town will look like in a few more years, with an ever increasing percentage of our population living here only during the school year, and all the other problems of having such an imbalanced demographic.
I’ve heard on webinars that gather together reps from several college towns of all the problems all college towns have, including “how quaint that you’re building 5 story private dorms! in our town, we’re building 12 story dorms downtown!” but I have not heard that other college towns are facing a situation of so few families that the town is steadily going out of the business of educating K-12.
I would ask our leadership and community to explore that impending future for Amherst. It’s good to know when you’re heading down a one-way street that is also a dead end.
The article attributes (without quotes) to Herman:
…while the high school has the capacity for 3,000 students, the number of students has dropped from 1,346 in 2020 to 1,271 in 2024 while the number of teachers over that same time has risen from 157 to 164 (paraprofessionals dropped from 80 to 75).
The first figure (3,000) sounds more like a total building capacity that might be approved by a fire Marshall, and not the number of students Amherst would plan to have learning there.
The second pair of figures represents a very small drop (75 students over 4 years, or a wee bit over 1% per year) in the high-school student population, while a decline, is certainly not a steep one.
And the third pairs of figures, taken together, represent an even smaller increase in the number of educators 2/237 over 4 years, or about than 0.2% per year, quite negligible.
It’s important to correctly identify the problem before trying to solve it. And that appears to be here:
Herman highlighted that Special Education ran $2.5 million over budget last year and that the effect of choice-in students from outside the district should be reassessed. She will also be seeking ways to create programming to keep students in district to reduce the more than $2 million spent each year to cover students attending Charter Schools.
That $4.5 million total would more than cover the expected budget gap, and could even be used to restore some of the most draconian curriculum cuts (such as world language education in grades 7 & 8) at the regional level.
Shouldn’t the bulk of special education expenses be borne by the Commonwealth, rather than by individual municipalities or school districts?
And while charter schools may have been an interesting experiment in the quasi-privatization of K-12 education, why should anything more than a token amount be taken from the “sending” public school districts to the quasi-private charter schools?
Ira Bryck and Rob Kusner, I appreciate this discussion. Thank you! (I write as a mother of two children now in their 20s that graduated from Amherst Regional HS and a mother of a 5th grader now at Wildwood Elementary School heading to middle school and high school in the next few years) Am looking forward to more news.
“The first figure (3,000) sounds more like a total building capacity that might be approved by a fire Marshall, and not the number of students Amherst would plan to have learning there.”
I disagree.
The district was formed in 1956, I’m guessing that the high school was built in the 1960s. That was at the height of the Baby Boom when there well could have been 3,000 students, and we had different attitudes toward education back then. (It probably had a smoking area for students to use.) Class sizes back then were 25-30, if not more.
Ira Bryck may be right about Amherst being a college town, but the number of births declined dramatically in 2008 and hasn’t recovered. Nationally, K-12 enrollment has declined over the past two decades, and this is part of what I am saying about what will happen to UMass in the Fall of 2026 when these lower numbers become the college cohort. This is particularly true in Massachusetts — with the exception of maybe a half dozen towns that built a *lot* of housing, K-12 enrollment has declined dramatically throughout the Commonwealth.
I would not be at all surprised to learn that ARHS was built for 3000 students even if it never had that many — this was before conservation land (and the Cherry Hill golf course) and it would have been prudent to believe all that land would have been developed and (back then) average 2 children per household.
It’s not just the college students — people are living longer and remaining in their homes longer. A house that once housed a family with young children is now owned by a couple whose children have now become adults — I’m sure we all know of lots of situations like that.
Now the thing I worry about is what happens if the low birth rate reverses — a lot of towns are building schools on the basis of their current enrollments, without the ability to expand them, and what happens if a lot of young families were to move into existing housing 20-30 years from now?
Let’s not make wild guesses about the history of class sizes at the high school and present them as fact. The high school building was renovated and expanded in 1993 and the classes served changed. It did not have 3,000 high schoolers in the 1950s.
I wholeheartedly support Amherst-Pelham Regional School District Superintendent Xiamara Herman’s proposal to close the middle school and have the district’s 7th and 8th graders taught in the high school building.
If Herman’s plan is realized, the district should surround the structure with a very high chain-link fence and let nature take its course. Left to itself, the building will crumble. Trees, grass, perhaps a vernal pool or two, will exceed the rubble. It would benefit children of future generations to witness nature doing what it does inevitably: wearing away all things created by humans and nature itself. Students of science from far and wide would have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness entropy and reforestation in action.
Imagine the attraction for time-lapse filmmakers!
Why waste money on demolition?
We have a unique opportunity. Let’s not squander it.