Rural school aid focus of advocacy week in region

As rural schools struggle to secure effective state support, school districts and officials in Franklin and Hampshire counties are participating in a week of rural school advocacy action beginning on Monday, March 9.

The Rural and Declining Enrollment Schools Week of Action is a statewide effort to call for state support of rural schools that are “sounding the alarm about the destructive consequences of underfunding and policy inaction,” according to an announcement from Sen. Jo Comerford’s office.

The week of action “is being organized by school committee members and municipal officials who have long called for the state to fully fund rural school aid at $60 million, while also demanding that the state pass the 2022 policy recommendations outlined in the [Special Commission on Rural School Districts’ report] — provisions that would help both rural schools and school districts with chronically declining enrollment,” the statement from Comerford’s office continues.

Organizers include Mohawk Trail Regional School District School Committee Chair and Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) Rural Schools Committee Co-Chair Martha Thurber, Mohawk Trail Superintendent Sheryl Stanton, Sunderland School Committee Chair and MASC Rural Schools Committee Co-Chair Jessica Corwin, Deerfield Selectboard member Tim Hilchey and Carolyn Shores Ness, formerly of the Deerfield Selectboard.

In Hampshire County, participating schools and districts include Amherst-Pelham Regional, Granby, Hadley, Hampshire Regional, Northampton, Pelham and Worthington.

In Franklin County, participating schools and districts include Erving Elementary School, the Frontier Regional and Union 38 School District, the Gill-Montague Regional School District, the Greenfield School Department, the Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont regional school districts, Rowe Elementary School, the Pioneer Valley Regional School District and Warwick Community School.

Civics students at Mohawk Trail will visit the State House on Monday to share their concerns about school funding. On Tuesday, members of the Shutesbury community will encircle Shutesbury Elementary School, and on Wednesday, fifth graders at Shelburne-Buckland Elementary School will visit the State House to advocate for rural aid. Lastly, the Frontier Student Council will lead a school rally for rural aid on Thursday next week.

In many of these schools, declining enrollment and insufficient state funding have created increasingly difficult conditions for schools. The fiscal year 2027 budgets in many districts are working with low preliminary Chapter 70 aid, while expenses continue to mount, especially in health insurance costs for staff.

This financial impact is tied to the declining enrollment many districts experience. The Special Commission for Rural School Districts’ 2022 report found that while statewide enrollment dropped by 3.8% from 2010 to 2019, Franklin County’s enrollment, for example, decreased by 20.8%, with some individual districts facing even steeper declines.

The commission also declared that an increase of at least $60 million in rural school aid is required to adequately fund these districts. However, the Legislature has never appropriated the full amount. Appropriations have increased slightly, peaking at $16 million in FY25 and dropping back to $12 million in FY26.

In a statement, Corwin said that in 2022, the commission found that it costs 23% more per student to give basic education in a small, rural school district than it does in a district with more than 1,300 students.

“This disparity has never been accounted for in Chapter 70 funding formulas, leading to grave inequities in academic offerings in rural schools,” Corwin said.

Schools are looking at insufficient Chapter 70 aid heading into the next year, with preliminary estimates from the state showing a 3.3% increase from FY26. For Rural School Aid, the state is offering a preliminary estimate of $20 million, an increase from FY26 by around $8 million, but still $40 million short of what is estimated to be sufficient.

“When rural schools are continually underfunded, it is rural superintendents and their staff members who are on the front lines – trying to do more and more with less and less,” Stanton said in her statement about the impact of limited school funding.

These staff members on the front lines, as Stanton notes, are also feeling the impact of inadequate support from state aid, as schools are in the process of making difficult budgetary choices.

“Our School Committee just voted to eliminate Frontier Regional School’s librarian to save money. When school expenses make up almost 70 percent of the entire municipal budget, barring major school funding increases from the state, the wheels are going to come off the bus,” Tim Hilchey of the Deerfield Selectboard said in a statement about the impact to the Frontier Regional School District.

Town officials, like Hilchey, are also stepping up to support the Week of Action.

Local officials in several area towns have or plan to send letters to the State House, including one in support of Bill S.314 titled “An Act to Provide a Sustainable Future for Rural Schools” filed by Comerford and former state Rep. Natalie Blais.

This legislation includes a number of provisions to support rural schools, including codifying the Rural School Aid Fund that would get $60 million per year from the state’s general fund, and priority will be given to schools serving the fewest students per square mile. Other provisions also include reform for equitable state representation by requiring a western Massachusetts representative to sit on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and for DESE to make annual recommendations for adjustments to the rural school aid calculation for improved equity.

To sign up to participate in the Rural and Declining Enrollment Schools Week of Action, visit https://tinyurl.com/35nyrf4p.

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