District Consolidation Should Be Approached With Care, Sensitivity, Says One Education Expert

It may look like Petaluma, with its eight school districts, is an obvious candidate for consolidation, but there is no one size fits all approach, warned a state expert. 

Earlier this month, and  discussed submitting a request to the Sonoma County Office of Education to evaluate whether there is "fiscal or educational advantage” to merging the two districts, which together educate about 10,000 students.

With uncertainty over a special election and impending budget cuts that have already resulted in approximately 50 Petaluma area teachers receiving pink slips for the upcoming year, public support for consolidation is riding high.

But joining forces is not always better for schools, districts and especially students, the expert warned.

“Just by saying you are doing a consolidation, doesn’t mean you will end up with a better curriculum and better teaching,” said Michael Kirst, a professor emeritus at Stanford University's School of Education and a former president of the California State Board of Education.

Although there is no active discussion to consolidate the smaller school districts in Petaluma--including , , , Dunham, Two Rock and  --they should also be looked at, Kirst said.

“Districts make very little sense when they are based on one-room schools founded when there were little schools surrounded by farms. There is no logical sense for these schools in these times. You have to ask ‘what has this to do with the 21st century?’”

School districts that want to consolidate, must first meet nine state criteria to make sure that consolidation does not result in financial or educational inequities such as a higher teacher to student ratios or pay cuts to teachers, he said. (See sidebar)

And since every district negotiates its own salary schedule for its employees, districts absorbing new teachers would have to pay the highest salary schedule among all schools, potentially negating any cost savings.

"The more alike districts are, the better consolidation would be for them," said Scott Mahoney, superintendent of Waugh School District in East Petaluma that has two schools and 930 students . "If schools had a similar salary schedule, class sizes and similar facility needs, then consolidation could be a plus because a superintendent or two would be eliminated."

But at one-school districts, the principal is also a superintendent, meaning that the position could not be eliminated, Mahoney said. 

Smaller school districts already combine services in many ways. They often share special education services, psychologists and some have eliminated busing and school food services. At Waugh, a nonprofit foundation run by parents, teachers and administrators raises $170,000 a year, which is spent on the arts, sports and technology, and that would be lost in a consolidation.

"At this point in time, we stand to lose," Mahoney said. "Now if the state continues what it’s doing and the special election does not happen, at some point everybody is going to be broke. So when everybody crashes and burns and districts go off a cliff, maybe then it will be a serendipitous opportunity to look at consolidation." 

Bob Ecker, superintendent of the Cinnabar Unified School District and principal of Cinnabar Elementary, its only school which has 178 students, says there have been informal discussions about consolidation among the smaller West Petaluma districts. But there has been a lot of hesitation, in part because of the historic ties of a school to a community as well as a reluctance to hand over the reins to someone else.

"There is a desire to remain independent and have a local board be involved directly in the governing of school district," Ecker said. "You want to retain the local flavor and community pride and they are all impactful when you are talking about consolidation."

But student enrollment has been in decline at many of the rural Petaluma schools since few young families move to the area. That means the topic of consolidation and even potential school closures are not entirely off the table, Ecker said.

Even for the bigger schools, there are many trade-offs. For example, if the Petaluma City Schools district entered into a consolidation agreement, it would lose $750,000 a year in parcel tax revenues, according to Deputy Superintendent Steve Bolman.

A parcel tax is a kind of property tax imposed by voters on themselves to fund special needs like schools. The PCS district would lose the tax in a consolidation because 65 percent voters in the new district did not approve the tax.

After the study on the viability of consolidating Old Adobe and Petaluma City Schools is complete, public hearings will be held. After that, the Sonoma County Committee on School District Organization will issue a recommendation. Another option is for a group of residents to circulate a petition that would be signed by property owners of the district in question. If an appropriate number of petitions are gathered, a public hearing would be held and a recommendation made to the California Board of Education.

In other words, the road to consolidation is filled with obstacles, some bigger than others. And it works if it not only saves money, but adds cohesiveness and streamlines the day to day operational flow of a district, says Kirst, the former board president of the California State Board of Education.

"At the end of the day, consolidation should build community spirit," he says.