Keith Cheveralls (File photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

"We moved here for the schools, 16 years ago,” Keith Cheveralls explained in a recent interview. Cheveralls, who is chairman of the School Committee, now seems to see a mild irony in that statement. He mused that Harvard’s excellent schools might have the effect of creating a “transient community” with families staying in the town only as long as their children are in school.

“A situation like that challenges the social contract by which prior generations educate the future generations,” Cheveralls said. “The whole calculus has changed dramatically. The funding dynamic has changed forever.” An override must have very high credibility to win community approval, he stated.

Relaxing over a cup of coffee on the porch at Westward Orchards, Cheveralls explained that his family had “made some adjustments” so that he could devote time to the School Committee. From his background in financial services and international banking Cheveralls sees the need for different skills in local government. “We do not make decisions quickly. We need to deliberate extensively, because it’s about process and transparency. You need to build consensus, build bridges between people,” he said, unlike the rapid-fire decisions that characterize the financial world.

Cheveralls looked back over his two years on the School Committee and ahead to the upcoming year. Since the Education Reform Act of 1993, he pointed out, school committees have had only three basic areas of authority—setting district policies, approving the district budget, and hiring the superintendent. He described the School Committee as one of four pillars of the school governance structure, with the others being the school administration, the School Councils, and the Student Councils. “It’s easy for the lines of authority to get blurred, especially in a small district,” he said.

Considering the School Committee’s goals for the upcoming year, Cheveralls noted, “The School Committee doesn’t get in and do things. We hold people accountable, like the superintendent.” He explained that the committee has been discussing whether it might accomplish more with fewer goals, especially by choosing goals with clear-cut outcomes. He expects the School Committee to make greater use of subcommittees in the coming year, with each subcommittee owning a particular goal but bringing reports and reviews to the full committee periodically. Like the regular School Committee meetings, those of the subcommittees would be posted on the town website and open to the public.

His own particular interest is the budget subcommittee, Cheveralls noted. While he described the budget process this spring as “very transparent,” he believes the budgeting process should start earlier in the school year. “The budget is a financial policy document,” he argued, “and it shouldn’t contain any surprises when it gets to the committee.” He hopes to begin in September by setting broad policy outlines for the next budget and improving communication over the allocation of scarce resources.

Another subcommittee might focus on the Devens contracts, an area where Cheveralls sees Harvard as highly vulnerable. “Harvard is in a very privileged position financially because of the relationship we now have with Mass Development and Devens,” he said. “But it is very risky to build those funds into our operating budget, which we have been forced to do.” He characterized the contracts, which bring about $600,000 per year into the school budget, as “precious, scarce, and fragile.”

Harvard won the contracts despite having higher costs than other bidders, he explained, mainly because the Devens residents wanted the Harvard schools. “But how long will Mass Development be willing to shoulder those costs?” he wondered. Either Mass Development or Harvard can withdraw from the contracts with two years’ notice, Cheveralls pointed out. He is watching with interest the regionalization of Ayer and Shirley, both towns are getting substantial state aid in creating their new district. Within two to five years, he suspects, they might have “a very viable school district.”

Demographics will be a driving force in the future of Harvard’s schools, according to Cheveralls. He expects the long-range planning subcommittee to commission a demographic study to help predict what the next five or more years will bring to Harvard. While the district subscribes to the New England School Development Council (NESDEC), those enrollment projections are limited to the near term, Cheveralls says.

Current enrollments in grades K-3 indicate a declining school population ahead, not just in Harvard but statewide. However, Cheveralls is not sure whether these numbers represent a sustainable trend or just a minor fluctuation. “If the trend does continue,” he said, “the School Committee has a very fundamental question to answer. That is, what is the right size for our school?”

On the other hand, Cheveralls sees the possibility of a sudden increase in the school population. A realtor recently told him there were 74 single-family homes on the market in Harvard, he said. “Are they all empty-nesters?” he wondered. “And if they are, maybe the School Committee has reason to be very worried! If they are replaced by families with several children, we could end up with a bubble.” And Devens remains, in his words, “a wild card” in estimating future school populations.

This uncertainty contributes to Cheveralls’ doubts about enrolling additional students through the School-Choice program. He pointed out that Harvard has historically subscribed to the Choice program since its inception in 1993. “Is Choice the right thing for Harvard’s public schools?” he asked. “It’s not just a financial issue. It’s a capacity issue. It’s a long-term issue about the composition of our schools.” Assuming Harvard’s enrollments don’t skyrocket from an influx of families, he said that having 10 to 15 percent of the school population from the Choice program seems reasonable to him.

While each Choice student brings $5,000 in state aid, that amount is substantially less than the $12,570 it costs to educate a child in the Harvard schools. Still, the extra money can help cover fixed costs such as heating, as long as the number of Choice students does not lead to increased expenses—the need to hire another teacher, for example.

Optimizing the number of students at each grade level, particularly in kindergarten, has been a subject for debate in School Committee meetings over the past several months, with Cheveralls generally opposed to enrolling more students under the Choice program. Still, he acknowledges that, at the high-school level, Choice “has been able to round out cohorts and bring in a diversity of students that have enriched the educational experience and allowed many classes to function more effectively.”

Cheveralls acknowledged that the School Committee required a major commitment of time and energy. “You have to be pretty serious about being on School Committee,” he noted. “A lot of what we do is really thinking problems through. We’re dealing with the town’s most prized asset, its educational legacy. And we’re also dealing with the largest part of the town’s budget.” But he encouraged others to run for office, calling it “a healthy process.”

“It’s dangerous when offices are not contested,” he argued. “And running for School Committee made me consider what I stand for.”