THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030474
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 88 lines
City school officials are pushing a plan to promote regional cooperation among Hampton Roads school districts that could save taxpayers millions of dollars.
The School Board is lobbying legislators for funds to study the benefits of forming an education ``cooperative'' in which school districts would pool resources to lower the cost of doing business.
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. said the potential for savings is unlimited - from buying classroom supplies and employee health insurance to consolidating teacher training and instructional programs.
The idea has been kicked around for more than two years, Nichols said, sparked by discussions among local superintendents that grew out of meetings sponsored by the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.
Nichols said recently that he envisions as many as a dozen of the region's school districts banding together to form a cooperative. Other states, from Georgia to New York, have created successful programs, Nichols said.
In a region where officials talk a lot about the benefits of cooperation but often fail to act, an agreement among school districts would be a major breakthrough, Nichols and Chamber of Commerce officials said.
``I would just very much like to show all the cities in the region that it's possible for regional cooperation,'' Nichols said. ``The politicians can't seem to do it, so I'd like to show them it can be done.''
Chamber chairman Gregory N. Stillman said the region's business community and residents would benefit.
``It's an opportunity we ought not to let go,'' Stillman said. ``We need to be thinking regionally about what skills our children need to fill jobs in this region. . . . We're interested in looking at what we can do to save taxpayers' money so we can put more dollars into the classroom.''
Stillman, former vice chairman of the Chamber of Commerce's education committee, said he has been involved in talks about an education cooperative from the beginning.
Early in those discussions, he said, officials concluded that the school districts could save up to $9 million a year, total, by combining health coverage for employees.
But the idea languished, in part because leadership in the school districts has been in flux, Stillman said. During the past two years, three of the five South Hampton Roads districts - Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach - have changed superintendents.
Nichols estimated that $75,000 is needed from the General Assembly to study the benefits of creating a regional cooperative. Some of the money would be spent on travel to school districts in states that have approved such ventures.
Norfolk Sen. Stanley C. Walker, co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the cooperative concept ``sounds good,'' but he wants more details.
``I think anything that has a tendency to bring together the Hampton Roads region is worth exploring,'' Walker said. ``I think there's a lot of merit to this proposal.''
K. Ed Brown, Virginia Beach schools' assistant superintendent for accountability, said the Beach district is interested.
``It makes good sense,'' Brown said. ``If taxpayers in the localities are the beneficiaries, that even goes further in selling the idea.''
Nichols pointed to a cooperative in Upstate New York as a possible model for Hampton Roads.
In the New York program, 53 school districts in three counties belong to a cooperative that has cut costs for each of the districts involved, said Jack Gallaher, deputy superintendent for administration of the Onondaga, Cortland and Madison counties' Boards of Cooperative Education Services, or BOCES.
The BOCES formed its own health insurance consortium, brokered a deal to save on natural gas, and consolidated some administrative positions and educational programs, including special education. For example, rather than each district running individual programs for severely handicapped or emotionally disturbed students, the BOCES operates one program to serve all of the districts.
Some BOCES employees, such as physical and occupational therapists, who nationwide are in high demand and short supply, serve all of the districts' special education students, Gallaher said. The same holds true for some maintenance employees, such as carpenters, electricians and plumbers.
The cooperative also saves money by buying such supplies as paper and food in much larger quantities than an individual district could.
``There's a lot of ways to save money,'' Gallaher said.
The BOCES receives funding from each of the local districts it serves as well as the state, which provides aid based on the services it provides, Gallaher said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Roy D. Nichols Jr., superintendent of schools, envisions vast
potential for savings - and a breakthrough in regional cooperation.
KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM EDUCATION NORFOLK SCHOOL BOARD CO-OP