Report: Lack of Support for K-12 School System

A plan to fully combine the Acton and Boxborough school systems recently took a hit when a committee studying the full regionalization reported a lack of community support, the Boston Globe reported.

For the past two years, the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District Study Committee has been looking into forming a system covering kindergarten through high school after Boxborough started seeing a significant decline in enrollment. The two towns already share a regional district for students in grades 7 through 12, and voted last year to put together a draft K-12 agreement for consideration, the Globe reported.

Despite many positives the study committee explained during numerous community meetings — which included better shared resources, avoiding administrative duplication, increasing enrichment and technology services, and providing additional teacher mentoring and professional development — residents weren't buying into it.

“There just didn’t seem to be an overwhelmingly compelling reason from Acton’s standpoint to do this,’’ Peter Ashton, the committee’s co-chairman from Acton, told the Globe. “The last thing you want to do is go to Town Meeting and not have it pass, because then it pretty much becomes a dead issue.’’

Town Meeting sessions in both communities are scheduled to vote on the plan on April 29.

Ashton said the committee will make a recommendation Thursday to the Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee that the votes be canceled. The School Committee could accept the recommendation or vote to continue moving forward with the proposal, said Mary Brolin, a member of the study committee and the Boxborough School Committee, the Globe reports.