Carisa Corrow of Penacook is co-author of “126 Falsehoods We Believe About Education” and founder of Educating for Good.

One positive thing about New Hampshire’s legislative process is that every bill gets heard. Even the really outlandish ones can serve as good conversation-starters, like HB765, a bill that would require consolidating school districts into county-wide SAUs. The bill would also mandate that school superintendents be elected, not appointed — a terrible idea considering elected superintendents may not have any experience running a school district.

But the idea of consolidation into a county-based system is not necessarily a bad one, that is if we consolidate into school districts and not SAUs.

For readers who may not know, SAU stands for School Administrative Unit. An SAU might only serve one school district, like SAU 18, which currently only serves Franklin. They also might serve multiple school districts like SAU 46, which serves both Andover and Merrimack Valley school districts, and SAU 29, which serves seven school districts!

These school districts operate independently from one another. Teacher and support staff contracts are negotiated separately. In one SAU, the pay can vary greatly from district to district. Policies and curriculum decisions are handled independently by each school board, and the cost-per-pupil and tax rates associated with running each school district can vary widely. The more districts and boards an SAU handles, the more complicated the job of a superintendent and jobs of SAU employees becomes — and these jobs are complicated enough already.

Right now, we have a shortage of qualified folks willing to take on the role of superintendent. To think that a layperson could run for the office of superintendent and win based on political ideology rather than knowledge of school management and learning is scary, scarier even than having a non-educator appointed to lead our state’s Education Department.

If we’re going to entertain the idea of consolidation, SAU’s are not the answer.

Let’s rethink the whole system.

I’ve thought about this a lot. A few years ago, I even suggested in a My Turn that Concord and Merrimack Valley consolidate school districts. After all, it doesn’t make sense that, in the same small city, there are two school districts operating independently and imposing two very different tax rates on Concord residents. In this instance, consolidation would have many benefits, including flexibility with staff, the establishment of magnet programs for both middle and high school and the opportunity to establish in-district programs that serve students with extraordinary needs rather than paying for expensive out-of-district placements.

Let’s use Concord, MV, Franklin and Winnisquam in Merrimack County as examples in the one district-per-county scenario. If these were operating in the same school district, each high school could have regular offerings as well as specialty programs that catered to students’ different needs and interests. Franklin has a smaller population and an excellent reputation for theater. Winnisquam has the Agricultural Center. Merrimack Valley has an award winning engineering program, and Concord houses the regional tech center.

A student who would thrive in Franklin’s smaller school setting might feel lost in Concord’s student population. Perhaps Winnisquam’s agriculture students and those attending Concord’s tech program could attend those respective schools all day instead of traveling between schools and missing classes at their school of origin. Maybe students who have an interest in engineering could all go to school at Merrimack Valley, combining resources and expertise that are now spread across the county. After all, some schools don’t even have an engineering program.

County districts could also invest in specialized day programs that would save the cost of private out-of-district placements, especially for students with behavioral needs. This does happen now occasionally, but not without tuition agreements that may or may not be equal across districts.

Perhaps this would push us to invest in better public transportation throughout the county, using bus routes that could benefit both students and the wider community to ensure that transportation would not be a barrier to public school choice.

I imagine that the authors of HB 765 carefully considered the distinguishing language between SAU and school district, because there is a distinction. SAU’s would still keep districts distinct and separate from one another, keeping us divided and focused on our local kids and our local tax rates and preventing us from fighting for better systems for all New Hampshire kids.

One consolidated district would equalize educator pay across a county, making the bargaining unit stronger. I’m sure Franklin, Pittsfield and MV teachers would welcome the pay bump to equalize salaries with their Concord peers. And, I’m sure that price tag was considered. One consolidated district would also mean questioning local control, a tradition that we hold tightly, even though it might be an antiquated way to organize — but that’s another essay.

HB765 has already received its public hearing, but legislators still have time to consider how they will vote. Consolidating districts under fewer SAUs would only divide us further. Combining into one district would connect us all.