Research Starts For Possible Ansonia-Derby School Merger

A Boston-based company will spend 18 months gathering data and conducting interviews exploring whether it makes sense to merge the Ansonia and Derby school districts.

Three employees from the company, District Management Group (or DMGroup), met Monday via video conference with six members of the ​“Temporary Regional School Study Committee,” an appointed group of 10 residents from Ansonia and Derby tasked with making recommendations to local legislators.

Ultimately, voters in both cities would have to approve the creation of a new two-city school district, if the committee and legislators choose that option.

DMGroup is being paid $137,000 to act as the committee’s fact-finder and guide. The money comes from a state grant and is being administered by the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments.

The goal is to see if creating a new Ansonia-Derby school district — or, at the least, sharing or combining some services — would provide a better, more cost-efficient education for students in two of the state’s most economically-distressed communities.

Click here to open a PDF report explaining how the state defines a distressed municipality.

In addition to studying full regionalization, the company will study and issue a report detailing potential savings if the school districts were just to share services, stopping short of a formal merger.

DMGroup has done extensive work in Connecticut and the northeast on similar issues.

The end of the process calls for workshops to discuss three detailed options:

1. Remaining the same

2. Regionalization/forming a new school district

3. Sharing services, but stopping short of formal regionalization

At a public meeting Monday, committee members spent roughly an hour talking to three consultants from DMGroup: Sam Ribnick, a senior director with the company; Robbie Havdala, a director, and; Simone Carpenter, a senior associate.

Ribnick, Havdala and Carpenter aren’t merely efficiency experts, corporate headhunters or bean counters — each had previously worked in education, whether teaching it was teaching in Boston or the Bronx.

It’s a background that instilled confidence in committee members such as Derby’s Tara Hyder, herself a teacher.

“It helps me to feel assured that they understand the reality of situations for students, parents and educators as well as needs of communities. They get it,” Hyder said.

Possibly regionalizing schools is a hot-button issue — and, judging by comments on social media, something everyone already has an opinion about.

Hyder, who has two children in the district, repeatedly said Monday the committee and the new consultants have to work methodically, and without preconceived notions or political influence.

“Some people theorize. Some people have opinions based on no experience, and that’s fine,” Hyder told The Valley Indy. But having an experienced third-party company involved makes sense, she said.

“To work with people who have done the job and who have worked in communities, in central office as administrators, and as teachers, they understand the work, and that makes me assured they are going to do a thorough job,” Hyder said.

DMGroup will be subcontracting with two other companies to study Ansonia-Derby school regionalization: Milone & MacBroom, and Silver-Petrucelli, an architecture firm. The $137,000 covers those subcontractors, too.

Milone & MacBroom will provide school enrollment projections, along with analyzing development trends and demographics.

Silver-Petrucelli will provide a survey of the two district’s physical properties along with conceptual planning regarding the future use of school buildings along with the associated costs.

Here’s a breakdown of what DMGroup has been hired to do:

• Issue findings detailing the wisdom of establishing a regional school district along with listing the pros and cons

• Detail educational and budget plans for at least a five-year period with projections of enrollments, staff needs and deployment, and a description of programs and support services planned for a regional school district

• Recommend facilities

• Estimate cost of land and facilities

• Make a recommendation about the size of a board of education to oversee a regional school district and how each town would be represented

• Make a recommendation about the equalization of assets and investments

Between now and April, DMGroup will conduct focus groups interviews with parents, local leaders and educators. The company will also gather financial data from the school districts, including the last three budgets and transportation contracts. DMGroup will also ask for programming information from the schools, which could include strategic plans and special education programming.

Meanwhile, Milone & MacBroom will collect data on property assessments in each town, along with school enrollment numbers, including how many local students attend area magnet and private schools.

Between April and October 2019, the company will create and present a report on regionalization.

Then, between October 2019 and June 2020, the company will study whether the communities can save money by simply sharing services. At this point workshops will be scheduled going over the options.

Talking about merging school districts is not easy. In Derby, for example, a plan in 2013 to reconfigure schools and grade levels just within the city was met with stiff opposition from parents who did not want to see changes.

At Monday’s school regionalization committee, members twice alluded to friction between the school district and city hall in Ansonia, where the school board has a lawsuit pending against the city for allegedly undercutting its finances.

State education officials are also conducting an inquiry.

Jim Gildea, the Derby school board chairman and co-chair of the regionalization committee, asked John Izzo, a member of the Ansonia school board and the other co-chair of the regionalization committee, whether he thought Ansonia’s central office would supply needed data to the new consulting group working with the committee.

“The short answer is, I don’t know,” Izzo said. ​“I would hope that they would cooperate and provide the information that (BMGroup) will be requesting.”

Izzo, reacting to Gildea’s statement that the central office has not been attending the regionalization meetings, said Ansonia’s central office ​“clearly” does ​“not have as much interest as the Derby folks do. That’s no secret.”

In an email Tuesday morning, Ansonia School Superintendent Carol Merlone wrote she is not sure why Izzo made the statement, but added that the central office will ​“most definitely cooperate.”

In addition to Hyder, Gildea and Izzo, the members of the Temporary Regional School Study Committee include:

• Steven Adamowski (Ansonia)

• Barbara DeGennaro (Derby)

• Tracey DeLibero (Ansonia)

• Joe Jaumann (Ansonia)

• Geroge Kurtyka (Derby)

• Ron Luneau, Jr. (Derby)

• Lorie Vaccaro (Ansonia)

The committee meets the fourth Monday of every month. The next regular meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Jan. 28, 2019 at Ansonia High School. The group alternates meeting locations between Ansonia High School and Derby Middle School.