The Westfield Academy and Central School District is looking for a new superintendent.

This shouldn’t be a lengthy search. In fact, one could argue the district shouldn’t even post the job.

In this age of sharing services, the resignation of Michael Cipolla to take a different job is an opportunity for the Westfield Academy and Central School Board of Education to possibly save money by looking to its neighbors to the east, west and south and share a superintendent.

It’s an 8.6 mile drive from Ripley Central School to Westfield Academy and Central School, an 8.2 mile drive from Brocton Central School to Westfield Academy and Central School and, if neither of those two options are suitable, an 8.6 mile drive from Westfield to Chautauqua Lake Central School.

Let’s just say that there are options for Westfield and its neighbors to pursue.

The state Board of Regents and state Education Department are pushing hard for regional solutions to problems as a way to save money. We don’t think the Board of Regents is necessarily eyeing school mergers – a mistake, in our opinion. We do think sharing superintendents or other services like transportation supervisors or other administrative positions is exactly what the Board of Regents and state Education Department have in mind.

We note Clymer, Panama and Sherman looking at electric school buses as an opportunity to possibly share transportation departments, as we reported a couple of weeks ago. Officials from the districts planned to meet before Christmas to consider a collective study to see if there was any efficiency that would be gained by merging the three transportation departments in order to meet a state electric bus initiative that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

Westfield and its neighbors should follow their lead. Over the past 10 years, Ripley has seen its enrollment decrease 51.3% from 308 students to 150 students. That’s the fourth-largest decline in the state by percentage. Westfield’s enrollment has decreased 15.1% from 750 to 631 students over 10 years while Brocton’s enrollment has decreased 9.5% from 558 to 505 students. Chautauqua Lake’s enrollment, meanwhile, is down 7.2% from 775 to 719.

Westfield Academy and Central School board members have a choice to make: post the superintendent’s job in the usual places and go through the usual process or reach out to one of three similar school districts to ask about sharing the position.

In our opinion, sharing this position is an easy choice.