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RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION TO IMPROVE THE FISCAL HEALTH OF RURAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS

WHEREAS, Rural school districts in Massachusetts face daunting threats to their financial sustainability and thus to their ability to provide rural students with the same quality of educational opportunity enjoyed by students in other parts of the state.

WHEREAS, The Commonwealth has rightly touted the state’s significant increase in education funding following passage of the 2019 Student Opportunity Act (SOA), however the most needy rural and declining enrollment districts have received less than 1% of that increase in funding.

WHEREAS, No less than four recent state and legislative commissions have reviewed the looming crisis facing rural schools and concluded that rural school districts are seriously under- resourced and under-funded.

WHEREAS, The most recent of these commissions was specifically created by the SOA “…to study and make recommendations concerning the long-term fiscal health of rural school districts that are facing or may face declining student enrollment…,” including recommendations for, among others things, “expanding the rural school aid grant program” and “establishing and including a low and declining student enrollment factor within the foundation budget.”

WHEREAS, In its final report, issued in the December 2022, the Commission on the Fiscal Health of Rural School Districts, concluded that Districts with very low student enrollments cost 16.7% per student more to operate than the state average and that small K-12 regional school districts cost 22.7% per student more to operate than their larger counterparts.

WHEREAS, rural school districts have closed schools, regionalized and shared services with other districts wherever possible in an effort to remain viable and serve their students.

THEREFORE, be it:

RESOLVED: That MASC urges the Legislature to pass comprehensive legislation encompassing all recommendations from the Legislative Commission on the Fiscal Health of Rural Schools report: A Sustainable Future for Rural Schools.