Arlington School Committee member Denise Burns has raised regionalization as a way for the town's public schools to save money, and she has been in informal discussions with officials about it in the past year, including one from Belmont.

Here are her comments, written April 7, about what discussions have taken place and where they might lead.

She wrote that the Belmont School Committee Chairman, John Bowe, and she met a year ago when she was scheduled to lead a group to visit state Senator Steven A. Tolman of Watertown as part of Stand for Children's Day on the Hill in 2008.

Bowe and she "kept in touch over the past year sharing ideas from how subcommittees are structured, to how to get committees to work better together," she wrote, "to how to tackle budget challenges and do more with less. Many of the same issues were being faced by the two systems. 

"He called me last September, and we were discussing the available market for new superintendents and the need for both towns to find a new superintendent.

"At first, we joked about conducting a search together. But shortly after that, I attended a meeting on the North Shore where they were discussing the Governor Patrick's education plan and specifically actions being taken at the state level to force district mergers.

"At that point, there was a question as to what size districts the governor intended to pursue this with. (Right now it is very small districts in the Western part of the state -- but John and I had each heard the number 5,000 students and below could eventually be combined.)

"We thought it would make sense to explore how well our districts fit together in the event we could prevent an 'arranged marriage' that may not be of our choice. We began researching whether it would make sense to pursue further with our respective committees."

She wrote that, at first, they researched the kind of savings that might be realized from combining Arlington's and Belmont's administrative offices, but after speaking with communities where the superintendent reports to two school committees, "it is clear this is not the most optimal recipe for success."

She then wrote that she contacted a School Committee member on the North Shore whom she had met at a seminar. The official, who she did not identify, had been involved in the "very successful Manchester/Essex district merger, and she provided us information on what had to be done in order to combine full districts."

The two collected some comparative data about the two systems. She wrote that her research was brought up publicly at an Arlington Budget Revenue Task Force meeting, last December, when regionalization of services was discussed.

"But it was only research to determine whether it was worth pursuing, not yet something to bring before the School Committee," she wrote. "My enthusiasm for this waned some when studying the data because the Belmont teachers are paid significantly higher than Arlington teachers (20K more a year on the high end)."

In a regionalized model, the unions would combine, she wrote.

"Given that teachers' salaries are such a large percentage of our budget, we (Arlington) really can't afford a fully regionalized district with Belmont if it means bringing our salaries up to their levels (as much as I would love to be able to do that for our teachers, as I believe they are every bit as qualified and work every bit as hard as the Belmont teachers)," she wrote.

She noted that Belmont trades off some with some larger class sizes, but the Arlington School Committee "has been firm that we want to protect class sizes as much as fiscally possible. (The main reason I advocate so strongly for the APS to remain an employer that respects teachers as professionals is that teachers don't stay in Arlington for the money. They will only stay because it’s a great place to work. If we lose that we will have a difficult time finding and retaining the best teaching staff.)"

She wrote that she discussed the research and ideas with interim Superintendent Kathleen Bodie, who she said has a very good relationship with the interim superintendent in Belmont. "She agreed (and was already beginning) to look for opportunities to work together at the program level to enrich what we have to offer or reduce costs by working together."

Burns then got down to some specifics:

"Some areas I recommended were around partnering to enhance AP offerings at the high school level without increasing cost, potential transportation offerings (which were already being explored), and facilities sharing opportunities. Some of this partnering is already in place through the LABBB Collaborative.

"Hopefully, Dr. Bodie will develop the same working relationship with Belmont's new superintendent, George Entwistle III, as he comes on board and continue to look for opportunities to reduce costs and/or enhance services.

"The schools, as every other department in the town, should (and are) always seeking opportunities to collaborate if we can provide better services together."

Bowe did not seek reelection in Belmont this year, and his term ended April 6.

"My conclusion with our research was that neither merging administrative offices nor a complete regionalization of the two districts would be beneficial at this point in time. So I decided not to bring it before the committee for consideration. Any continued talks at the program level can happen through the superintendents.

"However, the School Committee should continue developing relationships with members of the committee in Belmont and in other surrounding towns to explore options for partnering in new ways as the landscape evolves."