Lansing school district considering regionalization

Lansing Central School District (LCSD) is starting to consider pooling resources with nearby school districts to better help students.

The process, known as “regionalization,” was devised by the State Education Department (NYSED) Board of Regents in September. School districts are required to discuss and later implement regionalization plans in a new process that will begin this fall and repeat every 10 years.

Regionalization is a “strategic approach to addressing educational disparities, fiscal constraints and operational inefficiencies across school districts in New York state,” according to NYSED documents referenced in an article by the New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA). 

The goal is to improve student opportunities and operational efficiencies by sharing resources.

“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 the NYSED documents referenced by NYSSBA. “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.”

LCSD Superintendent Chris Pettograsso said at the Board of Education meeting on Oct. 15 said the district is starting to look into what that process entails. To do so, Pettograsso and other superintendents within Tompkins County met with NYSED Senior Deputy Commissioner Jeff Matteson to talk about the details.

“Our concerns were: ‘Are we doing this to save money? Are we doing this because we want to show how we can become better and make sure that there’s equitable access for all students in our region?,’” Pettograsso said. “We didn’t have those answers.”

Pettograsso said that Mattesson clarified the goal of regionalization.

“How can you come together as a region to make sure all students have equitable access to what you want for your communities?” she said of the goal of the plan. “It’s really an aspirational look at those things. 

Tompkins County school districts’ superintendents, Pettograsso said, will be coming together to figure out what they could potentially manage financially when regionalization occurs. Part of that process includes convening with the Board of Education at the Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES (TST BOCES) to find specific instances where regionalization could make sense for the needs of students in the county.

“We’re going to be working with that board, asking for them to come up with specific duties for superintendents,” Pettograsso said. 

A potential area where regionalization might be effective for county districts is transportation, Pettograsso said. 

“We’ve been doing regional studies on transportation,” she said. “Specifically, how can we centralize transportation so that students at different school districts attending the same locations like TST BOCES have a shared transportation system.”

Transportation, Pettograsso said, is key to the different educational offerings districts provide students. 

“One of the things to having access to programs is first making sure that we can transport students to those programs,” she said. 

The state’s Board of Regents has set the following deadlines, which are scheduled to be repeated every ten years. 

• Nov. 1 is the deadline for each school district that is a component of a BOCES to submit to NYSED an assessment of “strengths and needs.” 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 is the deadline for each BOCES to deliver an “interim progress report” to NYSED.
  
• Oct. 1, 2025 is the deadline for each BOCES to file a regionalization plan with NYSED. If the plan does not meet NYSED approval, it must be revised within 30 days.

• Implementation would start at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year.

In a NYSSBA article, Matteso 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.

Lansing at Large appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ezvelazquez.

In brief

On Oct. 16, the village of Lansing, working with Dr. William Miller (Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) and Luke Thomas (tractor driver), planted 10,000 flower bulbs in four municipal parks:

Philip Dankert Park – 2,000 bulbs

Shannon Park – 2,000 bulbs

Ned Hickey Park – 1,500 bulbs

Marian Hartill Park – 4,500 bulbs

The bulbs were a “Large Flowering Mixture” from ADR Bulbs in the town of Chester. To view a 7+ minute video of the plantings, click on the YouTube link below: