On Jan. 16, the Cazenovia Central School District Board of Education (CCSD BOE) had a lengthy discussion on the hot-button topic of school district mergers.

The conversation was prompted by a Jan. 10 joint retreat attended by the board at the invitation of the Morrisville-Eaton Central School District (MECS).

During the retreat, David Elliott from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) provided the CCSD and MECS boards with some general information about reorganizations between neighboring districts. Following a question-and-answer period, the boards were presented with data and information that was collected by MECS Superintendent Gregory Molloy and was previously shared with the Morrisville-Eaton community. According to Molloy, that information was supplemented with considerations of the financial challenges facing CCSD, as identified by CCSD Superintendent Christopher DiFulvio. The boards also heard from Rural Schools Association of NYS Executive Director Dave Little, who served as school board president during a merger exploration in his district years ago. He weaved his experiences into a discussion on the impact a merger would have on CCSD and MECS, including the potential pros and cons. The specific merger concept that was brainstormed and presented involves sharing central services and programs while operating the current buildings as is.

The minutes from the joint retreat are available on the district website.

The retreat was held for informational purposes only, and CCSD has no plans to take any steps in the direction of initiating a merger with MECS or any other neighboring district at this time.

If, at some point, the CCSD board and the board of a bordering district were to agree that the idea of merging presents sufficient potential benefits to warrant a formal exploration, the next step in a lengthy process would be for both boards to resolve to undertake a comprehensive merger feasibility study with guidance from NYSED.

CCSD board responds to retreat

During CCSD’s Jan. 16 follow-up discussion, the board acknowledged that MECS is far ahead of CCSD in terms of the number of steps it has taken in exploring reorganization as a potential path forward.

BOE President JoAnne Race commented that MECS has already researched the potential merger compatibility of each of its bordering districts; CCSD’s invitation to the Jan. 10 informational presentation was based on those findings.

BOE member David Mehlbaum stated that the material presented at the retreat gave him the impression that the two districts were “at two completely different places” in terms of information.

“My opinion is we are not even close to being able to answer the question about whether or not we want to embark on a study with Morrisville,” Mehlbaum said. “I would say there are many steps that [would] have to be taken before we got to that point with any district, not just one.”

The first step, according to Mehlbaum, would be for the board to get more information about the different types of reorganization and the pros and cons of mergers generally.

The next step would be a conversation about whether the CCSD board wants to entertain the idea of dedicating time, money, and other resources to exploring the concept of a merger.

“[That’s] before we get started having a conversation about [whether] we want to investigate other districts,” he said. “To my knowledge, we have not had any of those discussions yet, so we would have to almost pretend like that meeting didn’t happen on Wednesday and say, ‘Do we even want to talk about the word merger?’”

He added that if the board were to decide it would be worthwhile to research the merger potential of each of CCSD’s seven bordering districts, the board would then need to have a big conversation about whether any of those options seem remotely palatable enough for CCSD to approach another district.

“And then if we approach somebody, they are most likely going to say the same thing we did, ‘We’ve got to go back and look at all these steps [you’ve taken] and have these conversations and investigate that,’” Mehlbaum said.

In response to Mehlbaum’s comment about the different types of mergers, BOE member Dr. Jan Woodworth said it was her understanding that the only reorganization options that could be pursued are centralization, wherein a new school district is created encompassing the entire area of the school districts to be merged, and annexation, wherein the district to be annexed is dissolved and becomes part of the annexing district.

“If we absorbed Morrisville, for instance, this board would stay the same, the administration would stay the same,” Woodworth said when explaining annexation. “Morrisville would be dissolved, and we would assimilate them into our district.”

Woodworth and Race both commented that, based on the Jan. 10 presentation, they thought MECS was not interested in exploring annexation.

In response, DiFulvio announced that Molloy reached out to him to say that if the CCSD board was willing to listen to a presentation on annexation, the MECS board would be willing to as well, even though exploring annexation was not MECS’s original intent.

Woodworth then expressed her opinion that if the CCSD and MECS boards do not move forward with pursuing a merger feasibility study, there is no way to determine the exact amount of money that would come into a combined district, or any other benefits and possible pitfalls.

“We got a few numbers from them that were kind of rough numbers,” she said. “My [feeling] is that we could sit here and talk until we are blue in the face, but we don’t have that information. Until we do some sort of study, or have it done, we won’t have the information to make any decisions. And I don’t think that I personally could even make a decision about whether I’d entertain the idea of merging until I had more of that information. I don’t want to say, ‘No, I don’t want to merge,’ because if their numbers were accurate and there is $50 million at stake over the next five years and another $50 million over the next nine, I think we would be irresponsible not to discuss it — discuss it, not do it necessarily.”

She added that even if it got to the point where the board put a merger proposal in front of the voters, it would be up to the community to make the final decision.

BOE Vice President Meghan Kelly commented that there is a lot of misinformation circulating in the community, and a formal merger study would provide facts that would clear up a lot of that confusion, enabling the public to make informed decisions about whether merging makes financial sense for CCSD and is the right choice for students.

BOE member Ron Luteran and BOE member Judith Hight both said they felt uncomfortable during the Jan. 10 presentation.

Hight pointed to the disparity in the amount of information the two boards had going into the meeting.

“We’ve got to get into a position where we are taking charge of ourselves [and] generating some data about what the facts are [and] what we’re looking for, so we’re not just reacting to other people,” she said.

Luteran explained that his discomfort was due in part to feeling rushed into considering something huge that could alter Cazenovia’s legacy and impact the district forever. He acknowledged that a merger might be a great idea, but the board needs a lot more information.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever asked the question, ‘Do we need to merge with another school?’ here,” he said. “And we are talking about moving into a step where we’re going to do a study to see if we should merge with Morrisville.”

Luteran also said he thinks CCSD did “a terrible job” of communicating with the community leading up to the Jan. 10 retreat, and he thinks the board should have talked about the situation a lot more in a public setting and done a better job of providing information to the newspaper.

Woodworth then commented that although the big changes associated with a merger are frightening, she has observed firsthand, during visits to a couple of merged/merging districts, that it does not take students long to adjust.

“In the ones that have merged, the first year it’s kind of weird, there are weird dynamics,” she said. “But it doesn’t take kids nearly as long as it takes adults to get over the impact of the change.”

Race said she worries that agreeing to do a comprehensive merger feasibility study with MECS could generate hard feelings within the Cazenovia community, especially if the exploration is ultimately for naught.

“Mergers fail,” she said. “There is strong evidence that merging is not popular with [communities]. . . . There are a lot of people that identify with this community and have really strong ties and feelings, so this is a very, very sensitive topic. Those aren’t even strong enough words, so I just really worry about our voters — every individual voter that is there supporting us — and how this will affect them.”

Race suggested that the district consider putting out a survey or doing some sort of study to gauge the community’s interest.

“If there is overwhelmingly negative [feedback], then why waste our efforts?” she said.

Woodworth argued that if the board does not gather concrete information about the benefits and drawbacks of merging, the community won’t be able to form objective, educated opinions.

She emphasized her point by sharing that when she first discussed merging with her husband, whose family has been in Cazenovia “forever,” he initially reacted from a place of emotion.

“[He said,] ‘This is Cazenovia; we need to keep it Cazenovia,’” Woodworth recalled. “Then I mentioned the $50 million and the other $50 million, and he said, ‘Wow, you could do a lot with that. Maybe it’s not all bad.’ . . . That’s just him, but what I’m saying is that if we just present it out there as, ‘Do you want to merge with someone or [not?],’ I can guarantee that would fail.”

Luteran commented that he thinks the board should avoid throwing around specific numbers when discussing the potential financial benefits of a merger because the actual numbers could be nowhere near those presented at the Jan. 10 retreat. He later said he had “a lot of questions about the money.” He also said he didn’t fully agree with the list of merger pros and cons presented at the retreat.

Race agreed with Luteran about the financial benefits and said that, in her opinion, the situation is not quite as black and white as some of Woodworth’s comments made it seem.

DiFulvio then spoke up to say he was not sure that the MECS board was prepared to take the next step of a merger feasibility study either.

Learning more about reorganization

DiFulvio also informed the board that the information Molloy compiled in advance of the retreat was gathered with help from John Sipple, Ph.D., a Cornell professor whose research focuses on the responses of public school districts and communities to changes in state and federal policy.

According to DiFulvio, Sipple has developed a “District Reorganizer Simulation Tool” on Cornell’s website that calculates what the reorganization incentive operating aid would look like between two neighboring districts if they were to merge.

The superintendent said he could invite Sipple to present to the board.

He also noted that the firm Castallo & Silky does a variety of consulting work for districts interested in gathering information related to potential mergers.

The board then discussed bringing in a NYSED representative with merger experience/expertise to teach the board more about reorganization and answer questions.

Kelly said she feels strongly that the board should at least learn more about reorganization.

She said the board has a fiscal responsibility to ensure it is making decisions that are in the best interest of the district, and she believes that not pursuing all possible options would be doing a disservice to the people the board represents as an elected body.

Several other board members said they would also be interested in learning more about mergers.

Woodworth said she thinks it will also be important to provide the community with an opportunity to learn more and ask questions at some form of a town hall.

Mehlbaum expressed that he is not personally interested in continuing to talk about mergers at this time.

“If we say, ‘We just don’t have the bandwidth to study this right now, and we don’t really think we are in a bad enough position to need to merge with anyone right now,’ it would be okay to [then] say, ‘Today, we’re not going to have this conversation,’” he said. “We could change our minds a month later or a year later.”

The board wrapped up its discussion by determining that its next move would be to invite experts to present and respond to questions.

DiFulvio proposed that before bringing someone in to talk generally about mergers and before holding a town hall, it might be helpful for the board to meet with Sipple to learn about things like birthrate and enrollment projections for the area.

“Those are, I think, things that might help you better understand where you want to go with this,” he said.

The board also brainstormed how to better communicate information to the community, particularly to individuals who do not use computers.

In other news

CCSD’s Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) program was recently featured in the NYSED Office of Early Learning’s Winter 2023-24 UPK Newsletter.

The district currently has two UPK classrooms housed within Burton Street Elementary School, and it is considering adding a third classroom for next year.

NYSED’s “UPK Classroom Spotlight” recognizes CCSD’s commitment to the instruction of reading foundational skills using both the Fundations and Heggerty programs, and it highlights the role of Cazenovia’s UPK program in ensuring continuity of instruction.

“UPK teachers Mrs. Jenny Bailey and Ms. Tracy Ryan have implemented each of these programs with their prekindergarten students,” the newsletter states. “Students will continue instruction with Fundations and Heggerty through second grade. Such continuity of instruction helps to ensure students are meeting the NYS Next Generation ELA standards related to foundational skills.”

The newsletter continues by explaining that the Fundations and Heggerty programs both follow a developmental sequence and allow for opportunities to address the needs of individual students.

“Mrs. Bailey and Ms. Ryan have common planning time each day [that] allows for the review of curricular content, collaboration, and goal setting,” the article adds. “Mrs. Bailey and Ms. Ryan are excited by the progress students are making and look forward to continued growth this year as the group prepares for kindergarten!”

CCSD Board of Education meeting dates are listed on the district website and the school calendar. For more information on the school board, visit cazenoviacsd.com.

Anyone not directly affiliated with CCSD can sign up for the recently launched ParentSquare Community Group to receive newsletters and other information, such as public notices of building projects and budget votes. Sign up at parentsquare.com/community_signups/94dc9c19-0570-4ecd-bd7a-868cb499bc46/new.