photo credit: Sonoma County Office of Education

There’s no mergers scheduled yet.

But at a recent special meeting, Santa Rosa City Schools board members heard more about the prospects of unifying the city’s ten districts into one. An idea that’s been batted about for over a decade.

59 public schools make up the complicated constellation across the ten districts which dot the city of 175,000.

24 of those schools make up the two city districts - a high school and an elementary district.

The rest are grouped into smaller elementary and middle school-only districts.

Santa Rosa school board member Ed Sheffield said the goal for district unification is to benefit Santa Rosa’s students.

"This school district asked for this study, not because we want to take over or absorb the other districts," Sheffield said. "It's that we're the largest and these schools feed into ours, and it's about preparing our students at all levels to when they ultimately come to us in middle or high school. And we could do that a lot better if we had more dollars to spread around."

The big question is cost.

Christy White is the CPA who’s studied the hypothetical unification. White said the projections show a drop in revenue to the tune of 21 million.

"But the study also found by comparing a district of a similar size to a Santa Rosa Unified, that there is an opportunity to save approximately $45 million through reduction of administrative cost," White said.

State law requires nine different criteria be met for school district unification. This includes the preservation of community identity, no significant disruption to education programs or segregation of student bodies, and no major costs to the state.

White said her analysis shows a single Santa Rosa district would satisfy all nine criteria.

But according to White, a new unified district will need to properly balance the money saved thanks to reduced admin costs, and lost revenue from state funding.

Board member Ever Flores acknowledged the concern with change, especially for the many administrative staff at the different districts

But Flores said Santa Rosa’s students are why he’s interested in unification, and if it happens, "we will no longer be trustees of this board," Flores said.

"We will create a new school board of education," Flores said. "Citizens will vote for the new board of education. So this is not securing, you know, a place of...power. This comes out of a place of making sure our funding goes to our students."

With the exception of the Roseland School District, enrollment across the city has been falling in recent years. Some small districts are losing nearly 20% of their student body, and the enrollment projections through the end of the decade show a steady decline.

While the feasibility study shows unification of the ten districts is possible, any actual consolidation remains a way off.

The Santa Rosa City Schools board hasn't taken any definitive steps yet, and no other school district in the city actively participated in the study,

That's stoked concerns that Santa Rosa’s eight feeder elementary districts could exercise their right to refuse consolidation.