Regents create statewide regionalization process |
On Board Online • September 23, 2024
By Sara Foss
Special Correspondent
and Eric D. Randall
Editor-in-Chief
School districts throughout the state will be required to discuss and later implement regionalization plans in a new process that will begin this fall and repeat every 10 years.
Details of the large-scale effort were approved by the Board of Regents at its September meeting. The goal is to improve student opportunities and operational efficiencies by sharing resources.
Regionalization is a "strategic approach to addressing educational disparities, fiscal constraints and operational inefficiencies across school districts in New York State," according to State Education Department (SED) documents.
It is different from consolidation. "This model focuses on shared or 'pooled' resources, such as utilizing shared staff, extracurricular programs, and support services to provide students with broader educational opportunities," according to SED. "It also encourages partnerships with regional businesses and other school districts to enhance curriculum and student experiences, which will help meet the demands of new graduation measures."
"We believe that no matter where a student lives or is growing up in New York State, they should all have access to advanced courses, to college and career opportunities," said David Frank, assistant commissioner of SED's Office of Education Policy. "That's the transcript gap we're looking to eliminate. If you're the next Albert Einstein, but you never take a high school physics class, how do you know that you're going to succeed and excel in that? How do you know that you want to pursue a career in that? The same goes for plumbing and carpentry and having access to career and technical education."
Later this fall, district superintendents of each of the state's 37 BOCES will convene discussions to begin the development of regional plans. Participation will be mandatory for school districts that are components of a BOCES and voluntary for school districts that are not part of a BOCES. Charter schools, private schools and the Big 5 city school districts (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, New York City and Yonkers) will also be invited to participate in regional discussions.
The Regents set the following deadlines:
Nov. 1, 2024 (and every 10 years after) - Deadline for each school district that is a component of a BOCES to submit to SED an assessment of "strengths and needs" using a questionnaire to be developed by SED. Nov. 1 is also the deadline for each BOCES district superintendent to hold the first meeting among component school districts and other area schools.
April 1, 2025 (and every 10 years after) - Deadline for each BOCES to deliver an "interim progress report" to SED.
Oct. 1, 2025 (and every 10 years after) - Deadline for each BOCES to file a regionalization plan with SED. If the plan does not meet with SED approval, it must be revised within 30 days.
2025-26 school year (and every 10 years after) - implementation of each of the 37 regionalization plans.
Jeffrey Matteson, SED's senior deputy commissioner of education policy, noted that more than 300 New York schools have seen their enrollments decline over the past decade-and-a-half. He described the regionalization process as "a mandate for a conversation" that he said probably should have happened about 15 years ago.
Regent Roger Catania, a former superintendent, praised the initiative. "It's empowering to local districts," he said. "It's locally relevant. It builds on their strengths and addresses their weaknesses. These are good things, especially for our small districts."
The regionalization plan was adopted as an emergency rule and went into effect immediately.
SED officials told On Board that school districts will not be able to opt out of the discussions nor any local actions required by the regionalization plans developed by their BOCES district superintendent.
"Because regionalization plans will be developed with input from each component district, and because they are subject to continual review and renewal, we anticipate that these plans will have broad and strong community support," a department spokesman said in an email. "By leveraging stakeholder and community engagement early in the process, the department does not believe an opt-out provision will be necessary."
For more information, go to www.nysed.gov/regionalization . The text of the regulation approved by the Regents can be read here: bit.ly/4gnQFNP .