AMHERST — A review panel will examine representation on the Regional School Committee, whether Amherst sixth graders could join the regional school system and how each town’s annual assessment is calculated, as Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett prepare to revisit their regional agreement.
Town, school and finance officials from the four towns met last Saturday with representatives of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools to gather information before the review committee is formed.
The one- to two-year process will reopen and revise the agreement for the grades 7-12 district, which was established in the 1950s and last modified in 1997.
Regional Committee Chairman William Sherr, of Pelham, said the review committee, including its membership, could be established by the regional committee at its next meeting, scheduled for Oct. 20.
The push to revise the regional agreement follows several issues in recent years. The district has used an alternative method to apportion each town’s annual payment, though that method is not written into the agreement. The agreement also contains outdated language, such as failing to reflect that Amherst now has a Town Council form of government.
Another issue is whether the current nine-member regional committee, which has five representatives from Amherst, two from Pelham and one each from Shutesbury and Leverett, meets the “one-person, one-vote” requirement mandated by the state.
Michelle Griffin, regional governance coordinator for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, did not say definitively whether the committee complies. She indicated that it may, because its members are appointed by each town’s school committee, which is elected by that town’s residents. The committee could also meet the requirement in other ways, she said, such as a districtwide vote across the four towns.
In addition, Amherst is having its sixth graders, as part of the Chestnut Street Academy, educated in the Amherst Regional Middle School, even though these students are not part of the regional school district.
Amherst Town Council President Mandi Jo Hanneke asked if there could be a provision that would allow Amherst sixth graders to be incorporated into the regional school, even if the other towns’ sixth graders were not part of this. But Griffin said with one exception, Mohawk Trail Regional, such partial regional districts are not allowed under current state law, though she would check with the state attorney to verify this.
Partial regionalization of the sixth grade would likely need special legislation, Griffin added.
Whatever changes are recommended by the review committee will have to be approved by the Town Council in Amherst and Town Meetings in the three smaller towns, with the full text of the revised agreement placed on the warrants.
Griffin said the communities have a “very old agreement” that needs to be adjusted, observing that in recent years an alternative funding method has been used for calculating assessments that include placing a so-called guardrail on how much any community’s contribution could increase. But that alternative formula is not listed in the agreement, meaning only the statutory method established by the state can be used.
“It’s only allowable if it’s in the regional school agreement,” Griffin said.
Griffin said the regulatory and statutory language in the agreement must be updated to meet current state law and the admission and withdrawal sections could be changed so new communities could be added or current communities could be subtracted.
Jay Barry, a consultant with the Massachusetts Association of Regional Schools, said he has helped update around 18 regional agreements across the state, and there will likely be grants available to help the review committee, though he cautioned it will be time-consuming.
“The projects are significant, they take a lot of work and they take a lot of time,” Barry said.
He suggested that it should have School Committee, Select Board, Town Council and Finance Committee representatives from each town, though there was question about whether Amherst’s larger size might prompt it to put forward more members.
Ajay Khashu, who chairs the Shutesbury Finance Committee, asked whether the review committee would be updating the regional agreement to reflect current practices, or whether it would be about proposing changes to the existing structure.
That would be unknown until that committee is given its charge.
A similar question came from Pelham Select Board Chairman Bob Agoglia, who wanted to know what topics would be considered by the review committee beyond expanding the number of grade levels in the region and providing an alternative assessment method.
A committee in the 1990s proposed extending the region to encompass all K-12 students, though that was never implemented by the communities.
