Joint meeting touches on school consolidation in Cheektowaga
Talk of consolidating school districts in Cheektowaga is always just a water cooler away, but this time it’s the School Boards that brought it up.
Members of the boards of Cheektowaga Central, Cheektowaga Sloan, Depew and Cleveland Hill met jointly Monday night, something they do several times a year.
They talked about health insurance, a survey of students, security, and consolidation — again.
“We’ve done this many times,” said Sloan School Board President Claire M. Ferrucci.
Many of the board veterans remember a similar meeting at Cleveland Hill High School four years ago, when a woman who had overseen nearly 40 consolidations for the state Education Department told the districts the state recognizes three problems or criteria for consolidation.
They include the need to improve the program, perhaps because there were too few students to provide adequate programs; insufficient capacity to renovate or build new schools; and a greatly changing tax rate that has become unaffordable to local taxpayers. None of the Cheektowaga districts have those problems that have caused other districts to merge.
“It makes sense for them,” said Cleveland Hill Superintendent Gordon T. Salisbury. “I don’t see how it makes sense here, but it makes sense to talk.”
He and Depew Superintendent Kimberly A. Mueller have been talking together and with area college administrators about starting cooperative programs in their two schools. And Cheektowaga Central Superintendent Delia G. Bonenberger said her district is looking into the academy model for high school, and wants to start a health care academy.
“I think that’s a place we all ought to look at,” Bonenberger said. “Should we all be trying to start a health care academy? Probably not.”
But if Central started health care, and another district had an arts academy and another district offered a finance academy, they might be able to offer all three to their students.
“Shared curriculum would be wonderful,” Salisbury said, “but we’d have to get together.”
Cheektowaga Central Board Member Diane Panasiewicz suggested the districts come up with a list of items they already share, such as the business officer who works for Maryvale and Cleveland Hill, and the shared purchasing done by the districts. The districts also participate in the Cheektowaga Alliance, a group promoting healthy choices for the youth in the community. They need to share that list with taxpayers, she said.
The districts also said they all had some or all of their employees enrolled in the Erie 1 BOCES health trust for health insurance. Sloan Superintendent James P. Mazgajewski said his district saves $250,000 a year by having all of its employees in the plan.
