HADLEY — At a recent Rural Schools Summit with state education leaders, Hadley Superintendent Anne McKenzie and other rural school officials pressed for consistent funding of rural school aid and a formula that no longer ties state aid almost entirely to enrollment.
McKenzie said the western Massachusetts legislative delegation will play a critical role in drawing attention to the challenges rural districts face, as a newly revived state commission called the Foundation Budget Review Committee analyzes how Massachusetts funds its schools.
“Without continued advocacy and decisive action, we risk losing not only educational opportunities for students, but also institutions that are central to the strength and vitality of our rural communities,” McKenzie said. “We must build on the progress already made and work together to ensure a sustainable future for rural education.”
The summit, held Nov. 3 at the Collaborative for Educational Services in Northampton, connected local education leaders with state policymakers including state Education Commissioner Pedro Martinez; Education Secretary Stephen Zrike; state Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton; state Reps. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, and Mindy Domb, D-Amherst; and Rep. Ken Gordon, D-Bedford, House chair of the Joint Committee on Education.
Coming out of the summit, McKenzie said she hopes the Legislature will adopt recommendations from the Rural Schools Report completed in 2022 to fully fund rural school aid with adjustments for inflation. She also urged the state to create and fund a rural school transportation account, keep funding efficiency and regionalization grants, and have the state commission account for the higher per-student cost of educating children in rural schools.
“Rural school districts are an essential part of the commonwealth’s public education system, but the circumstances in which we operate are often very different from those of larger and more densely populated districts,” Patricia Kinsella, the superintendent of the Pioneer Valley Regional School District, said in a statement. “Declining enrollment, rising costs and the challenges of maintaining educational programs across geographically large districts are placing enormous pressure on our schools.”
Hadley’s educational situation
Hadley schools are facing challenges, McKenzie said, because overhead costs, such as heat, utilities, building maintenance and employee benefits, don’t fall when enrollment does.
Chapter 70, the state’s main school aid program, has gone up by $139,306, or 11%, year over year, but net charter tuition expenses outpace this, increasing by $178,347, or 28%, as do town health insurance costs, which have risen by $758,717, or 60%.
Small, rural districts with declining enrollment are “held harmless,” meaning their aid doesn’t drop, and they receive a minimum increase of $75 to $150 per student. That increase doesn’t keep up with inflation, so the town has been spending more than the state requires on its schools to avoid cutting programs and services, McKenzie said.
That extra spending has another cost. Because charter school tuition is based on what a district spends per student, Hadley pays more for each student who attends a charter school.
The only way to expand programs in Hadley’s schools is through grants, McKenzie said. But grants aren’t always reliable and depend on shifting state and federal budgets, which makes long-term planning difficult.
Hadley has also pursued regionalization and efficiency efforts. It shares staff and services with neighboring districts, from business services to board-certified behavior analysts, and takes part in cooperative purchasing and bidding. It also shares programs, including an early college initiative with Granby, Easthampton and the University of Massachusetts, and collaborates on professional development.
A revived commission
The Foundation Budget Review Commission was revived in the fiscal 2027 state budget signed by Gov. Maura Healey. It will examine the K-12 funding formula and how the state can address the rising costs of education, particularly special education, transportation, personnel and employee health care.
The commission was last active 10 years ago, when its final report in 2015 recommended increasing funding for Chapter 70 by $432 million. The fiscal 2027 budget includes $7.66 billion in Chapter 70 aid to public school districts, an increase of $297 million over fiscal 2026.
“My stress level around [the Foundation Budget Review Commission] is really high,” said Jessica Corwin, who chairs the Sunderland Elementary School Committee and is a member of the Frontier Regional School Committee. “If this doesn’t go well for rural schools, it’s game over […] I hear these stories from these other rural schools — Mohawk Trail, Gateway Regional — that they are truly in their final death spiral. If there is not an infusion of cash, they’re not going to be able to meet the basic needs of their students anymore.”
Corwin also co-chairs the Massachusetts Association of School Committees Rural Schools Committee.
“We know that there are going to be lots of competing interests. We are underfunding education everywhere; everybody needs more money,” she said said. “But rural schools have been left behind repeatedly in these processes, and we are further behind than everybody else.”
The new commission must file a report with recommendations backed up by the data that it collects by Oct. 31, 2028, and hold at least four public hearings across the commonwealth.
The Storyboard Project
To broadcast the challenges rural schools are facing to Beacon Hill, the Massachusetts Association of Rural School Committees organized the Rural Schools Storyboard Project.
Committee volunteers reached out to select boards, school committees and superintendents in 71 school districts across the state that receive rural school aid, asking for local and personal stories illustrating the hardships and loss that come from state funding falling short.
“What really helps make the case for rural schools is when people hear real stories from real people about things that have happened or are happening,” said Martha Thurber, who chairs the Mohawk Trail Regional School Committee. “You bring it right down to the level of, ‘This is affecting our students.’ When people hear those kinds of stories, it’s not abstract — it brings it right down to the level that people can emotionally understand.”
Leverett Finance Committee member Liz Kiebel this week told the Select Board that she would be meeting with community members and families to craft a storyboard for Leverett Elementary School.
After the Dec. 18 deadline for submissions, the volunteers will package the stories online and compile them into a booklet with common themes and statistics to anchor them. Thurber envisions handing copies to the commission members when they host a hearing in the region. She called the final product a “hard copy version of the Rural Schools Action Week.”
“In some ways, this is a bit of a study of what are the issues today,” Corwin said. “We’re looking to extract themes but really show our unity and common concerns.”
So far, Corwin has heard from 30 of the 71 communities stretching from Berkshire to Barnstable counties.
“We will be fighting hard to get stories from all of them,” Corwin said. “It’s a real grassroots effort.”
Residents in rural school districts connected to the issue can submit stories through the Rural Schools Storyboard Project’s website at ruralschoolsma.org/storyboard.
