LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Time to Consider Consolidation

It is an honor to have served on the LS School Committee and to have had the opportunity to serve the communities of Lincoln and Sudbury in the pursuit of maintaining excellence in the high school.  In these last three years I have worked with my colleagues and we have accomplished much, most recently the successful negotiation of the contract with the LS Teacher’s Association.  With this new contract, we have managed to keep LS on a path to financial sustainability while maintaining the core values of the school.

As I now stand for re-election, I have reflected on what I would like to see accomplished in the next three years.  In conversations with LS parents and other constituents, I have continuously heard the same question; why can’t you consolidate the schools; consolidate the three districts into one, with one administration, to cut costs, and with one curriculum management system, to guide our children’s education from kindergarten to 12^th grade? 

The only answer I can give is; because we have never tried.  I have heard many reasons about why it would be impossible; from some very smart people.  But no one spoke from experience; only from speculation.  So I ask, isn’t it time we tried?

I call upon the three school committees plus the Boards of Selectmen of our two towns, Lincoln and Sudbury, to charter a Task Force of people from both towns, with varied disciplines and responsibilities, and with a diverse range of opinions about this goal, so as to avoid frontloading a bias toward the final opinion, and charge them to create a thorough analysis of how to accomplish this consolidation.  To, in effect, create a possible roadmap toward creating the Lincoln Sudbury Regional School District.  

Will there then be many issues to negotiate, such as the DOD contract for Hanscom, the three teacher contracts and three health plans, the need for Lincoln to invest millions in new school buildings and how to join together more closely two towns which have had two very different approaches to growth in the last two decades?  Of course, there certainly will.  It may well be the hardest part of the entire process.

But first let’s create together the vision of a better school district. So I ask you not to think of why this can’t work but to dream with me about how it could.  Isn’t time we tried? 

Kevin J. Matthews

Candidate for re-election for L-S School Committee