There has been plenty of talk about the historic, trailblazing nature of the Center-Monaca school district merger.

The state Education Department regards it as the first voluntary school district merger ever, and Gov. Ed Rendell used it as an example when he issued a call for school consolidation this year.

"School districts all around the state are talking about this," Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak said last summer at a key point in the process.

"It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of your achievement," James Barker of the state board of education said in September, when the board approved the merger application.

Dr. Zahorchak hit both themes in a letter that was read aloud Wednesday at the first meeting of the merged Central Valley School District.

"Your efforts not only will benefit the students of the Central Valley School District for generations to come, but they also will serve as an indispensable road map for other school districts in the commonwealth that might choose to travel down the path that you have paved," the letter said.

But Mel Mikulich, elected Wednesday as the first president of the new school board, said he'll leave history for others to judge.

"What it all means on a grand scale is really not for me to say. We just had to do what was best for our districts and our kids," Mr. Mikulich said. "Is it the template for future people to look at if they're think about a merger? I don't know that.

"For us, it's just hard to believe that the day actually came, the day when we stepped over that line, when there was no more Monaca and no more Center, just Central Valley."

Dan Matsook, elevated from Center Area superintendent to Central Valley superintendent, made similar observations.

"We're so wrapped up in trying to stay one step ahead of everything, we've really had no time for reflection," he said. "It's like you get five minutes and you stop and reflect, then you roll your sleeves back up and get back to work."

During the five minutes he took to reflect at Wednesday's meeting, the emotions hit him hard enough to leave him momentarily too choked up to speak.

"I just couldn't believe it was finally here," he said the next day. "The whole thing was hanging by a thread so many times, in so many different ways. It was just this incredible feeling of 'We're here. We did it.' "

Will their experiences encourage other districts to follow?

There are certainly reasons to answer that in the negative. The two boards have over the past year and a half clashed on staff, budgets, taxes, the use of buildings, administration, scheduling, names, colors and mascots. In the hothouse atmosphere between the two, even the more routine items such as whether to contract for food service -- as Center Area did -- or provide it in-house -- as Monaca did -- can become a charged issue.

Board members insulted each other. Center Area's Ben Fratangeli at one point called his Monaca counterparts "little babies" for canceling a meeting; Monaca's Mike Halama resigned while issuing a letter comparing working with the Center Area board to "going to Vietnam during the Tet offensive." At other times, members of the two boards didn't speak to each other at all.

There were threats and strong-arm tactics. In May of last year, Monaca said it would ditch the process and find a new partner, which helped get a deal-saving compromise on the use of its high school as a middle school; Center Area's threat to request a delay of the state board's approval in September played a role in getting legislation passed that allowed the new district to keep Center Area's existing mercantile tax.

And there were long meetings and heated discussions of the ridiculously arcane, like how to set up student committees to narrow the list of finalists for the new district's colors or mascot.

On the positive side, the district just approved a budget that is $1 million less than the two districts' combined budgets last year.

The new district is looking ahead to filling its advanced classes when the high schools merge in the fall of 2010. Center Area usually cancels half of the classes because it can't fill them, and tiny Monaca simply did not offer many in the first place.

On Thursday, the board will hear from a committee that has been visiting model middle schools and is putting together options for the school that will be launched in what is now Monaca High School in the fall of 2010.

"I think you're going to see drastic improvements at the middle school level," Dr. Matsook said.

Both districts now, of necessity, have middle schools blended with their high schools, but in 2010, "we'll have a middle school building with a middle school program geared toward middle school kids, and you're going to see a difference there right off the bat," he said.

Monaca Superintendent Mike Thomas, who will serve as superintendent of merger affairs, said it has all been worth it for him.

"We're promising a better education and better opportunities for our children," he said, "and that's what everyone on the board believes in.

"I feel very fortunate and very proud to be a part of that."

Would that be true, as the state hopes, for other districts as well?

"Every district is unique," Dr. Matsook said. "To say they're all going to match like Center and Monaca did, you can't know that.

"But if you roll up your sleeves and look at it, you might be surprised at what you find."

First Published: July 6, 2009, 8:00 a.m.