KENT, Conn.—The Board of Finance, which has long fretted over rising education costs and declining school enrollments, heard a report during its meeting last week about a new study being initiated to determine the shape of education in Region 1 in years to come.
The comprehensive study has been suggested by Region 1 Superintendent of Schools Melony Brady-Shanley and district business manager Sam Herrick. The proposal, first introduced in March to the All Board Chairs Committee, was revisited at a Thursday, May 21, meeting and is now being weighed by the six member towns.
Each town’s Board of Education will review the proposal over the summer and decide whether to opt in. If it goes forward, Brady-Shanley predicts it would last throughout the next school year, with results by June 2027.
“The first step was when the Region 1 board for voted to participate,” Kent Board of Education Chairman Heather Brand told the local Board of Finance. “Now the towns can decide whether they want to participate or not. We’re trying to be clear about saying this is just informative. By participating, they are not agreeing to anything.”
She acknowledged that there is an “emotional reaction” when towns are asked to consider giving up their own schools. “It’s a combination of keeping each town’s individual character and what it does to a town to not have a school,” she observed. “This is by no means a decision.”
But the issue of enrollment is becoming critical in region schools as the numbers of students continue to dwindle. There are six member towns in Region 1, each of which maintains an elementary school and shares Housatonic Valley Regional High School. 2025-26 enrollments for pre-kindergarten through grade 8 at the six schools range from a low of 71 in Falls Village to a high of 276 in Salisbury.
Because the small, rural communities educate very small student populations, they cannot achieve economies of scale despite sharing administrative services through Region 1. In addition, high out-placement and services for special education can wrack a budget. Brand said pupil services costs are higher because schools are experiencing more behavioral issues. “If we regionalize, there will be more cost,” she said.
Still, school costs are staggering for communities of only a few thousand residents. Sharon’s per pupil cost for 2024-25, the most recent year for which final figures are available, was $46,587. It ranked number 1 for expense in Connecticut, and Cornwall, Falls Village, Kent, and Norfolk (not part of Region 1, but adjacent to it and limping along with a total enrollment of only 57 students), rounded out the top five.
Kent has a relatively healthy enrollment at 185, but the Board of Finance has repeatedly encouraged school administrators and the Board of Education to seek innovative ways to reduce costs.
For the 2026-2027 school year, education spending for Kent Center School was approved at $5,337,470. This allocation represents a 2.69 percent increase from the previous fiscal year. When Kent’s contribution to the Region 1 School District, the high school, the Regional School Services Center and Pupil Services, is included, combined education expenditures are $8,146,440.
In Falls Village, education costs accounted for approximately 62.6 percent of the town’s total approved budget for the coming fiscal year, with the town authorizing $4,201,917 for education. All other municipal budgetary expenses totaled $2,503,382.
“Class sizes are getting smaller, populations are getting smaller, and, unfortunately, the cost of everything is rising,” Brady-Shanley told ABC Committee members. She said the investigation will analyze “demographic trends, enrollment patterns and operational capacities” to establish a “future-focused framework that maximizes opportunities for students, strengthens and aligns academic programming and responsibly stewards community resources.”
“Sharon is struggling the most with per-pupil costs,” Brand reported to the Kent finance board. “Falls Village and Sharon are the most alarmed. But the goal is not to pull them into another school. This is a comprehensive study that will look at trend lines and what the options might be—nursing, vehicles, options for preschools … . Maybe we could regionalize the eighth grades.”
She said there have already been more coordinated activities for middle school students as the region prepares them for the move from their local elementary schools to the mixed environment of the high school.
“I always feel frustrated that we feel so far removed from the [regional budgeting process] and it’s a big chunk of our budget,” said Board of Finance member Jason Wright. “We can’t exercise the same rigor over the regional budget. We have to look at how to re-engineer the process.”
Chairman Nancy Odea Wyrick said some problems, such as the cost of transportation in a geographically large region, are intractable. “But the bottom line is two classes per grade [at KCS] is ridiculous when you look at the size of the school. I know you want to be able to move kids around, but that’s where the creative stuff has to come in.”
Wright asked if it might be useful to bring in a management consultant. “I’m not convinced we have the inhouse capacity to look at this,” he said.
But Odea Wyrick said the Region 1 administrators have taken on the task. “I think we should give them the opportunity to work through it,” she said.
