Seven-Mile Island Schools Examine Consolidation Options

SEVEN-MILE ISLAND — Could there be a combined Avalon/Stone Harbor/Middle Township board of education on the horizon?
Two small grade schools here could see some major changes as both districts look at cost-saving measures, including consolidation with a mainland community.
Centennial Associates, LLC, an educational consulting firm, prepared a feasibility study for the Avalon and Stone Harbor boards of education on educational options for consolidation.
Currently, the two school boards share a chief school administrator and curriculum coordinator as well as shared business services. Avalon and Stone Harbor both currently send high school students to Middle Township High School on a tuition send/receive basis.
The study cites enrollment projections through 2013, which suggest that the two Pre-Kindergarten (PK)-8th grade districts will both stay at an annual average of nearly 75 students with less than a five-student fluctuation from year to year. Avalon Kindergarten students attend school in Stone Harbor.
With no new housing developments, these barrier island towns will not see an increase in students and, the study states, current student enrollments continue to decline.
Options proposed in the study are:
• Status quo as separate Kindergarten through 8th grade districts
• Pre-Kindergarten (PK)-8 regional option, in which the two districts form a single PK-8 regional or consolidated district, the difference being in governance. This option could include one or two school buildings. Both current boards would be eliminated and replaced with a regional board with representation based on percentage of enrollment causing Avalon to have greater representation. Regionalization would not likely create any savings in administration because the districts currently already share those services.
• K-4 district and a PK, 5-8-district scenario, which modifies the two current districts into one district, likely Stone Harbor becomes a K-4 and Avalon, becomes a PK, 5-8 district. Both school boards would continue to exist with mutual send and receive relationships established. “If the respective boards wish to remain intact, this is the best option,” the study states.
• PK-12 regional configuration, where the two districts would also have a high school is cited as “readily apparent that no K-12 option is either viable or economically feasible.”
Avalon and Stone Harbor do not have a large enough student population to form a district with a comprehensive high school on their own, the study states. Under this option, boards would be dissolved and new board of education would be formed for Avalon, Stone Harbor and Middle Township.
“Regionalization with Middle Township High School would be financially detrimental to both Avalon and Stone Harbor due to the high equalized valuations of the two towns unless taxes were apportioned strictly on a per-pupil basis,” it states.
Both boards voted to accept the study at their respective September meetings.
Stone Harbor board member Dede Harris opposed accepting the study.
“I don’t favor consolidation. I’m a strong believer in neighborhood schools. A neighborhood school gives a community its soul,” she said.
Harris said the boards had a similar study done in the early 1990s.
Avalon and Stone Harbor boards of education each paid $22,000 to date to share the cost of the study. The study was initially projected to cost $28,000, at $14,000 per district.
“We’re not done,” said David Rauenzahn, superintendent of both districts.
He said there would be additional expenses for legal fees and the like after the districts hold a combined meeting to present study findings and gather public input Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.
Contact Truluck at (609) 886-8600 ext. 24 or at: ltruluck@cmcherald.com.