Berkshire County — If all goes well, many of Berkshire County’s public school systems will see a rise in state aid after the state Senate agreed this week to an increased rural schools funding request pushed by state Sen. Adam Hinds, D-Pittsfield.
Hinds told The Edge that the Senate has adopted his budget amendments to increase funding for the Rural School Aid grant program by $1.5 million, raising the total proposed appropriation to $3 million in the fiscal year 2021 Senate budget.
“A child’s ZIP code should not determine the quality of their education,” said Hinds. “Rural school districts experience fiscal uncertainty every year because of the unique and substantial obstacles they face to provide their students basic school services.”
See video below of Hinds announcing the Senate agreement Wednesday on Facebook live:
The Rural School Aid grant program helps school districts with low population densities and lower-than-average incomes address fiscal challenges and take steps to improve efficiency.
Administered by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Rural School Aid is a source of funding separate from the Chapter 70 program, which is by far the largest program of state aid to public schools in Massachusetts.
RSA is intended to supplement the operating budgets of eligible school districts to compensate them for the unique challenges rural school districts face. In an interview, Hinds said lawmakers across the state — even those who represent urban and suburban districts — have awakened to the difficulties confronting rural schools.
“So my colleagues, when I talk to them, especially in the Ways and Means Committee, of which I’m a member, they all recognize that we still haven’t figured out our funding formula in a manner that adequately makes up for the additional challenges and costs confronting rural schools,” Hinds said.
For one thing, regional school districts, both suburban and rural, have felt the crunch. The state government pledged many years ago to reimburse them for their transportation costs. It is a promise that the state, which actually wrote the promise into law, has broken repeatedly, much to the frustration of rural school officials, whose transportation and busing costs are higher than in the rest of the state, and who must make up the difference every year.
In addition, rural school districts face higher costs in other areas. Declining enrollments make schools more expensive while fixed costs remain higher relative to larger districts. For example, a rural elementary school might have only one third-grade class of 12 students. If the number of students in the class falls to six, the school’s costs remain the same because a teacher still must be in the classroom. Small rural schools also have smaller tax bases and lack economies of scale that would reduce per-student costs and increase purchasing power.
See video below produced by the Massachusetts Rural Schools Coalition explaining the fiscal and logistical challenges unique to rural schools:
Hinds said in order for school districts to qualify for Rural School Aid, DESE must determine that a school district meets two requirements: The “rural factor” (student density per square mile of a school district); and “ability to pay” (the average per-capita income in a school district).
Specifically, Hinds explained that eligible school districts must have a student density of “not more than 21 students per square mile and an average annual per-capita income of not more than the average annual per-capita income for the Commonwealth for the same period, as reported by the United States Census Bureau.” Furthermore, rural school districts serving fewer than 11 students per square mile are prioritized to receive funding.
On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the state Senate passed a $46 billion budget for FY2021, after adding $36.1 million in what Hinds called “targeted investments over the course of two days of deliberations.”
Hinds said the bipartisan budget “aims to move the Commonwealth towards an equitable recovery by making critical investments in sectors impacted by COVID-19, including early education and childcare, food security, housing supports and public health.”
Largely because of fiscal challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the state has been limping along without an FY21 budget and has been passing monthly spending plans. House leaders also passed a budget of approximately $46 billion. Hinds expects the two spending plans to be reconciled within the next two to three weeks. Hinds acknowledged that the House budget does not contain the rural school aid.
“But I will say it’s increasingly viewed as a Senate priority and so they tend to let the Senate take the lead,” Hinds explained. “On some items, the Senate lets the House take the lead, so we’re feeling good about our chances.”
Not long after the first round was distributed two years ago, Hinds traveled to Wahconah Regional High School in Dalton to announce the first recipients of rural school aid from the state.
DESE Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley attended and spoke, along with now-retired state Rep. Stephen Kulik, D-Worthington, who has worked with Hinds on the initiative. Earlier that year, DESE had produced a 36-page report titled “Fiscal Conditions in Rural School Districts.”
In 2018, a total of $1.5 million was distributed to 33 school districts, most of them in western and central Massachusetts and on Cape Cod. The Central Berkshire Regional School District, which serves Becket, Dalton, Hinsdale, Peru, Washington, Windsor and the Hampshire County town of Cummington, led the pack with almost a quarter of a million dollars, with dozens of others receiving considerably less. Click here to see the distribution from 2019.
Two years ago, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District received a little more than $21,000, which was used to fund an innovative collaborative care program envisioned by former Muddy Brook Elementary School Principal Mary Berle.
The Southern Berkshire Regional School District, on the other hand, received no funds in 2018 or 2019, according to Superintendent Beth Regulbuto, mostly because of the “average per capita income component.”
“I couldn’t agree more with everything Sen. Hinds has said and the importance of recognizing the needs of rural districts and the increased costs associated with running a school district in rural communities,” Regulbuto said in an email. “Unfortunately, due to the formula used to calculate the amounts to be distributed to rural districts, SBRSD has never received any funds.”
Regulbuto added that the Senate’s approval of the increased funds is nonetheless “a positive step and a crucial step to sustain the rural school districts and is a small step towards helping our towns who are shouldering a huge portion of the costs of funding a quality education for our students.”
Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon told The Edge he appreciated Hinds’ support and advocacy for rural schools and that “he gets our financial challenges.”
“This funding has historically allowed Berkshire Hills to support innovation and collaboration,” Dillon said. “In these COVID-19 times, we’ll likely use the additional resources to reduce class sizes and support the health and wellness of students and staff.”
Hinds said once the budget passes, he and other lawmakers will work with DESE to finalize the amount per tier and then announcements will be made to individual schools districts.
“Superintendents and principals were saying we really need the rural school aid this year,” said Hinds, whose parents were both teachers at the Mohawk Trail Regional School District in Shelburne Falls, from which he himself graduated. “We’ve had so many unanticipated costs related to the pandemic, from air filtration to technology needs, so it felt even more important this year.”
