That was one of the items discussed in the brief first meeting of the year for the district's board of education Thursday. The future of Lawrence Elementary School was only briefly touched on, and board members said no timetable has been set for a decision.
On the topic of shared services, Superintendent Bruce Kidder said he's looking at ways to supplement or expand current relationships with the Village of New Matamoras and some townships in the district.
"We do cooperate with them," he said, noting New Matamoras has helped the district with plowing and a village employee oversees the sewage treatment facility at Frontier High School.
The state has set aside about $45 million to encourage shared services, Kidder said. While receiving some of that money could help the school district, it might benefit the other government entities even more, he said.
"Believe it or not, they're hurting more than we are from the (state) cutbacks," he said.
Two other districts in Washington County- Warren and Fort Frye- are in talks to share a treasurer, but Frontier officials said they aren't considering that type of shared services at this time.
"I don't think we're going to go there," said board member Jeff Lauer, who was elected president for 2012 during the brief organizational meeting prior to the regular session.
Newly elected board member Ricky Kroll agreed, suggesting there could be concerns raised over whether an official working for two districts is spending more time on one than the other.
Kidder said the idea of sharing his position with another district was among the suggestions he'd received from residents in recent months as a way to save money for the district.
"There are superintendents that run more students, more buildings and more buses than I do," he said.
Jeff Knowlton, chosen to serve another year as the board's vice president, wasn't a fan of that proposition.
"I think we got a lot of other options to look at before we consider that," he said.
Kidder gave board members a copy of notes he'd compiled after three community meetings held at the district's three elementary schools since September. The meetings were an effort to gain feedback from residents on the district's future as increasing deficit spending is forecast in the year's ahead.
A proposal to address that by closing Lawrence Elementary generated a backlash from supporters of the school, and board members in September announced they would not make a final decision until after the start of the new year and the election that would bring at least one new member to the board.
Lauer said the board has not set a deadline to make the decision. The next step is to review the notes Kidder brought them.
"We want to take the time to look through those before we make any rash decisions," he said.
In other business, the board voted 5-0 to hold its meetings for the year at the high school, although the location could be changed if needed.
Last year, meetings rotated among all four schools in the district.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Evan Bevins
Quelle/Source: News and Sentinel, 06.01.2012
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