Originally Posted by boomeriam
Reply With QuoteThe Lakeshore Central includes mainly the towns of Evans and Brant and includes the village of Angola. North of it is Frontier Central (Hamburg) and possibly Hamburg Central (although I think this district runs further east). To the east of it are Eden and North Collins SDs. South of it is Silver Creek in Chautauqua County. It is primarily a suburban/exurban district with most students being middle income, but with fewer upper income students than Frontier or Eden. It also probably has more lower income students than either of those districts, especially the children of farm workers, many of whom come from non-English speaking homes. LCSD is probably most like North Collins CSD which is starting to become attractive to suburbanites and exurbanites from the South Buffalo, Blaisdell, Hamburg areas.
The problem with combining outlying suburban and rural districts in southern Erie County (and all of Chautuaqua and Cattaraugus counties)that are already centralized is that they already cover large areas. What's saved from consolidation is often lost in increased transportation costs.
Perhaps a better situation than "consolidation" is "reorganization". Maybe the 8 school districts in southern Erie and northern Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties (Lakeshore, Frontier, Hamburg, Springville, Eden, North Collins, Silver Creek, Gowanda) that are fairly close together could sit down together and divide themselves up into 5 or 6 new districts. For example, perhaps Lakeshore might be divided among Silver Creek, Frontier, and Eden and maybe North Collins would be divided among Eden, Hamburg, and Gowanda or among Eden, Springville, and Gowanda.
Another possibility might be for some of these schools to consolidate their administrations but leave their school district boundaries "as is". This would be especially true because of the high cost of top district administrators. For example, Frontier and Hamburg are fairly close together, but both districts are large in area and consolidation would create a district that stretched from the boundaries of Lackawana out to the Boston hills. Perhaps a central administration could cut administrative costs, and perhaps a process of "sharing" teachers could be worked out. Perhaps the same scenario could work for Gowanda/Springville or Lakeshore/Silver Creek or Eden/North Collins or other combinations: Gowanda/Lakeshore/North Collins or Springville/Hamburg/Eden, etc.
