THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 8, 1997 TAG: 9701080004
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 64 lines
Norfolk school Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. has proposed a measure that should save Hampton Roads school districts many millions of dollars a year. It deserves support.
He proposes that as many as a dozen of the region's school districts form a cooperative to make joint purchases.
The idea grew out of discussions among local superintendents at meetings sponsored over the past two years by the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. Officials concluded, among other things, that school districts could save up to $9 million a year by combining health coverage for employees. Substantial other savings could be obtained by having the cooperative purchase items such as office equipment, furniture and food for all the districts and by providing centralized printing and possibly training for prospective principals. Also, Nichols said, funding agencies favor cooperation and collaboration among districts and might be more inclined to provide education grants to the region.
The proposal sounds radical for South Hampton Roads, but similar cooperatives around the country have led to large savings for participating school districts.
Chamber Chairman Gregory N. Stillman said, ``It's an opportunity we ought not to let go. 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.''
Staff writer Jon Glass reported that a 53-district cooperative in upstate New York 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.
The Virginia Peninsula doesn't have a cooperative for purchases, but for 31 years it has had a cooperative school, offering special programs that would be more difficult for individual school districts to provide.
Called the New Horizons Regional Education Center, the school has campuses in Hampton and Newport News. It serves students from those cities, Williamsburg and Poquoson and Gloucester, York and James City counties. Each district has one member on the school's governing board, and attendance and busing are free for residents of participating localities.
The school is teaching 49 autistic children and 111 emotionally disturbed children. It provides career and technical training for 1,171 students, often in high-tech areas like computer-aided design. It also provides advanced training for 155 very bright students.
Nichols would like to see his proposed cooperative expand beyond purchasing and cover such areas as vocational training.
``I tend to think,'' Nichols said, ``there are so many possibilities that it can't help but be the right thing to do.'' Also, he said, ``It would get us talking to one another on a regular basis and sharing information.''
Invitations to join the cooperative have been sent to the seven large Hampton Roads cities, plus Poquoson and Southampton counties.
Nichols said $75,000 is needed from the General Assembly to study the benefits of a regional cooperative. Some of the money would be spent visiting cooperatives in other states.
For a proposal that could lead to a $9 million annual saving on health coverage alone, $75,000 is small potatoes. The General Assembly should approve the expenditure and the study should begin. Potential benefits are immense, not the least of which is increased cooperation among Hampton Roads school districts.