The Riverhead Board of Education has decided not to participate in a controversial initiative introduced by the State Education Department aimed at encouraging nearby school districts to share resources.
The board voted unanimously at its last meeting to opt out of participating in the state initiative. The vote came on the eve of the Jan. 15 deadline to notify the State Education Department whether the Riverhead Central School District intends to participate in the regionalization planning process.
“We still have some more questions, questions that we haven’t gotten full answers on,” board President James Scudder said before calling a vote on a motion to opt out. “And we believe at this point that it’s in the best interest of the district, since the deadline is tomorrow, to opt out and to not proceed with the regionalization with New York State,” Scudder said.
Scudder did not elaborate on the nature of the unanswered questions and the vote took place without any board discussion.
The state initiative is about “fostering local conversations, facilitated by the district superintendent of your BOCES, to discuss ways local districts can ensure equitable access to educational opportunities,” according to the State Education Department.
The state at first intended to make participation mandatory, but met with resistance from some school boards, parents and elected officials, who argued the initiative would strip local control away from school districts. The education department backed off on mandatory participation and decided to make participation voluntary.
NYSED said the regionalization plan is not about reorganization or consolidation of districts, but about plugging what it calls the “transcript gap” in some districts, where high school students don’t have access to the same educational opportunities as do students in other districts. Local districts, facilitated by the BOCES superintendent, would collaborate to identify and pursue “a variety of possible solutions to the academic and operational challenges they face by tapping into the full span of capabilities that already exist in their larger region.”
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