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The economic downtown is driving the state’s towns and cities to look at ways they can work together to share services and save money. Governor Rell's budget provides incentives for this kind of cooperation. But Connecticut’s towns have a proud history of local control – especially when it comes to their schools. As part of our series on regionalization, we visited Eastern Connecticut to see how towns are cooperating to stretch tax dollars and improve teaching and learning.
15-year old Nathan DiFransesca says he doesn’t mind the nearly half-hour commute each morning from Preston to New London’s Science and Technology Magnet High School "..cause they have a good engineering program and that’s what I want to do when I get older…"
Students travel to the school from 12 area districts because the gleaming new state-of-the-art facility offers science and technology courses that may not be available in their own hometowns and high tech equipment used in professional laboratories.
"This is the computer integrated manufacturing class..all the computers are linked up to this machine in the back that cuts like these blocks of plastic and we use this 3D printer."
Inter-districts magnet schools are not new, but New London superintendent Chris Clouet says they remain one of the best ways cities and towns can work together, maximize tax dollars and improve education. Behind the scenes, New London saves money through other regional partnerships. The district is part of a consortium that buys textbooks and classroom materials together. And now Clouet says New London is looking at new ideas. "Rather than have each district have its own bus contract, I think having a regional transportation system for education could be very useful and ultimately cost effective. Things like specialty subjects. Each district has a hard time finding people in certain hard to fill subject areas, like foreign language, like certain sciences, that sort of thing. Maybe we could share.."
Regionalization is not new to education. With 166 school districts, Connecticut’s towns and cities have long explored ways to work together to stretch dollars. 17 regional districts already exist. There are also 6 independent Regional Educational Service Centers with programs that are costly for districts to do alone, like special education classes and professional development for teachers. But school budgets are in crisis, so local boards of ed are taking a fresh look at cooperative arrangements.
"We started talking about regionalization probably about a year and a half ago when we first got an inquiry from Eastford around hey..maybe we should look at doing something cooperative"
Richard Schad is chair of the Board of Education in Pomfret, a small rural town in northeastern Connecticut. Pomfret has a strong, successful history of public education. Kids attend Pomfret Community School from kindergarten through 8th grade. Then they go to Woodstock Academy, along with students from Eastford, Brooklyn and Woodstock. But Schad says its time for these regional partnerships to grow, because student population is increasing and Pomfret’s Community School building is in need of repair.
"Why not build a new building for all of our students and their students? In addition the state reimbursement for building projects that are cooperative or regional, there is essentially a 10% kicker to how they reimburse for that, so there’s less tax impact."
Schad anticipates tough challenges ahead. What if one town wants a Spanish program and the other wants French? What’s a fair funding formula for each town? He says the hardest part will be figuring out how residents, with long histories of local control over their own schools, can find a way to work together. 
"There are a lot of people that have lived their whole lives in Pomfret. They went to school here. Their children have gone to school here. Some have grandchildren in this school. I mean even things that seem trivial like naming the school would be a challenge..is it Pomfret and Eastford? Do we take a generic name?"
But he says those challenges are not insurmountable. Its not clear if the economic recession will help or hinder Pomfret’s regionalization process, but dialogue between towns is continuing.
That dialogue is now being pushed by legislative leaders. Proposals at the Capitol provide new incentives for towns to share resources between school districts.
