Picture two elementary schools with distinct philosophies and culture in a single district, each offering excellent education in a fiscally responsible way. Entirely possible to achieve, but it will take two towns working together, instead of against each other.

The long-running imbroglio over cost allocation in the up-Island regional school district — a struggle over who pays how much in the district that serves three towns with two schools — dates back well over a decade. Much work and multiple studies have been done in an attempt to find common ground. Yet disagreement reigns, primarily between West Tisbury and Chilmark. Aquinnah is a member of the district but does not have its own school.

In the latest salvo, a West Tisbury subcommittee is recommending that Chilmark pay for a hundred per cent of the cost of its school, and also a share of the West Tisbury School. The committee concludes that because West Tisbury has the capacity to accommodate all the children in the school district, the Chilmark School is not a necessity. So if Chilmark wants a school, it will have to pay for it alone.

However well intentioned, the committee recommendation is nonsensical. Better to dissolve the regional school district altogether, which may be the inevitable, if unfortunate result of this longstanding feud.

Theoretically, at least, the three up-Island towns are better served from a financial perspective with one district administering two schools. That was the conclusion in 1993 when the district was formed, partly to save money on transportation costs. And that was the conclusion again in a detailed 2006 study, which noted that splitting up the district would result in the loss of state reimbursements and no real savings.

Beyond dollars and cents, there are the harder-to-quantify benefits to giving parents an option in the way their children are educated. The Chilmark School has a long history dating from its days as the one-room Menemsha School. Today the former school building is the police station, and a newer school sits across the road at Beetlebung Corner. It’s not a one-room schoolhouse anymore, but it retains some of the charm and educational philosophy of a small community school, among other things using combined classrooms for students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade.

The West Tisbury School was an Island pioneer in its own right in the school-without-walls movement in the 1970s, an experiment in education that later faded. Today West Tisbury is a bustling, more mainstream school with an impressive curriculum that serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The sad truth, however, is that enrollment in the Chilmark School has dropped precipitously in recent years while more and more families in the district are opting to send their children to West Tisbury. School administrators need to take a hard look at the reasons for those decisions, which are not just a simple reflection of the population of eligible schoolchildren in each town. If Chilmark wants to both remain in the regional school district and keep its own school, the school itself needs to make a better case for its unique value.

In a polite letter to the West Tisbury selectmen this week, the Chilmark finance advisory committee took exception to the recent report from the West Tisbury subcommittee.

“It is not clear that the interests of the entire district and both schools and their populations are being considered,” the committee said in a letter that appears elsewhere in this issue of the Gazette. The report was received by the West Tisbury selectmen last week, who referred it back to another two-town committee this week with no comment on the merits.

Now . . . picture a joint committee of Chilmark and West Tisbury residents working side by side with school administrators to figure out a two-school solution that optimizes the strengths of each. Entirely possible to achieve, but it will take two towns working together, instead of against each other.