Smaller schools consider consolidating

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WIVB) - In Cheektowaga alone, there are portions of eight different school districts. Monday night, four of those districts applied for a grant to study the benefits of consolidating.

Dr. Rick Timbs, a local authority on school finance, was brought in as a guest speaker as the school boards of Cheektowaga, CleveHill, Maryvale and Cheektowaga Sloan School districts consider whether to merge in some way.

"They can't sustain the budget," Dr. Timbs said.

Cleveland Hill School Superintendent Jon MacSwan said, "That's too early for me to say yet right now. I think there should be an investigation into is there efficiencies that we can improve upon or possibly even a reorganization to offer our students a better opportunity to save our taxpayers dollars."

According to Maryvalle School Superintendent Deborah Ziolkowski, one advantage of merging is "increased course offerings for our students. Right now, it's difficult when you're running a small district to offer everything that you possibly could for kids. If you consolidate, you may be able to offer more courses for them."

Enrollment is down and these districts can only cut so much while vying for a smaller piece of the pie from the state.

Dr. Timbs said, "The wealthiest school district in the state is 45 times wealthier than the average school district in western New York."

And Cheektowaga isn't the only town considering school consolidation. West Seneca has a consolidation proposal on a smaller level. School officials there are considering closure of East Elementary, and making it part of East Middle School to include sixth and maybe fifth graders. West Seneca has half the students it used to.

West Seneca School Superintendent Dr. Mark Crawford said, "And all these years, we've attempted to save all the programs and all our buildings, and over the last several years we've been cut significantly with state aid."

There is a public meeting Tuesday night at West Middle School regarding the West Seneca plan. And in Cheektowaga it would be at least a year before voters would get the final say on merging districts.