After two informal meetings between the Harvard and Boxborough School Committees, the Harvard School Committee created a subcommittee to formalize the discussions about possible resource sharing between the Hildreth Elementary School (HES) and Boxborough’s Blanchard Elementary School.
Finding itself in a financially unsustainable position, the Blanchard School Committee approached Harvard, looking for ways the two elementary schools might share administrative or other resources. According to School Committee Chairman Keith Cheveralls, the Boxborough School Committee expressed interest in Harvard’s school food service, and the Harvard and Boxborough town administrators were discussing sharing facility management.
The Blanchard School District is simultaneously investigating folding its one school into the Acton-Boxborough (A-B) Regional School District. Boxborough students in seventh through twelfth grades currently attend A-B schools. According to Cheveralls, the Boxborough community would prefer to keep its standalone school, while Boxborough’s Board of Selectmen and Financial Committee are evaluating the costs and trade-offs of regionalization.
The Boxborough School Committee is on a tight deadline to offer a proposal at Boxborough’s Annual Town Meeting in the spring. The committee expects to have early recommendations ready by January or February.
If Harvard is looking for collaborations, why not look at other neighboring school districts? questioned School Committee member Piali De. “I always get nervous when we align to A solution,” she said. “I always would like to bounce around similar collaboration opportunities with other neighboring schools.” De suggested investigating collaborative possibilities with other towns, while continuing focused conversations with Boxborough.
“I don’t have the bandwidth to do that right now,” replied Cheveralls.
Harvard Schools Superintendent Thomas Jefferson said the charge was specific to Boxborough, but that he would be “glad to expand to other schools.”
The School Committee voted to form a subcommittee specific to Boxborough, with members Patty Wenger and Cheveralls, advisory positions for Jefferson and Harvard’s Finance Director Lorraine Leonard, and a request to the Boxborough School Committee for similar representation.
