TO: Regional Agreement Working Group

FROM: Katherine Appy, Alisa Brewer, Andy Steinberg

DATE: August 18, 2014
RE: Critical unresolved regionalization issues

Amherst members of the Regional Agreement Working Group (Katherine Appy, Alisa
Brewer, and Andy Steinberg) met on August 15. We continue to believe that expansion of the
region to include grades PK-12 offers the best long-term promise, educationally and financially,
for the four towns. The current system is not sustainable for at least two towns and therefore
threatens the strength of the current regional Middle School and High School. As a practical
matter, the hybrid arrangement that allows a town to not participate for gradesPK-6 if it chooses
that option is the reorganization that is most likely to achieve support in all four towns.
We discussed the five critical issues:
1. Distribution of savings. Goal: Develop an assessment plan that reasonably allocates
costs in a manner that is fair to all communities. If there are savings for the four-town region in
the first years, those savings must be allocated amongst the towns and no town should then see
its costs in those years increase.
It will not be possible to recommend an assessment method for inclusion in an amended
Regional Agreement in a September report to the Regional School Committee. The Regional
Assessment Working Group is developing principles for assessments in the present region and
possibly an assessment method for FY 16. As the School Committee considers that
recommendation, it can consider how it would apply in the various hybrid models with three and
four towns participating at grades PK-12. We recommend that on August 19, we look at the
principles that the Regional School Committee should consider for a hybrid region.
2. Amending the Regional Agreement. Goal: To assure Amherst Town Meeting that the
agreement cannot be amended without its affirmative vote. We cannot expect that the
Agreement will be amended without the affirmative vote of the town with 88% of the population.
It does not naturally follow that a town with 3% or 4% of the population should be able to block
an amendment supported by three towns representing 96% or 97% of the population. We
recognize that the end result may be that there will be no change in the amendment provision of
the current agreement.

3. School Committee votes requiring more than a simple majority. Goal: To have a
Regional School Committee that is elected by the voters of the region and has a responsibility,
individually and collectively, to oversee schools for the region.
The goal as stated supports a process of election and composition that has all four towns
vote for all school committee positions. It also supports a principle that all or virtually all
matters should be determined by a majority of the committee.
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4. Decisions related to instructional methods, materials, and resources. Goal: That the
agreement comply with the requirements of MGL Chapter 71 and support the Superintendent to
provide educational leadership and assure educational cohesiveness. We recognize that
elementary schools have communities and that a policy statement encouraging the
Superintendent to appropriately consider input from those communities would be appropriate.

5. Rejoining elementary students to region after they are initially excluded from the
region. As explained in section 1, above, the hybrid arrangement is the structure that is closest to
a PK-12region that can gain support in all four towns. Goal: To allow the hybrid district, if
established, to quickly develop the educational and management plan that will best serve the
regions students

If a town votes to not include its elementary students in the region, its PK-6 students are
not students of the region. No block of students, whether from a town that is not in the region or
from a town that has opted to not include PK-6 students in the region, should be added without a
process that considers the educational, financial, management impact on the region. This cannot
be done solely by the vote of the Town Meeting that has previously voted to not include its PK-6
students in the region. Any town that considers whether to not include PK-6 students in the
region from the beginning should be prepared to continue to support an independent elementary
district.