Four years ago, Rob Gradisek and Pam Ronczka sat across from each other at the first merger meeting between the presidents and vice presidents of the Center Area and Monaca school boards.

The process they started will reach its ultimate goal Wednesday, when Center Area and Monaca will officially become Central Valley School District. It is the first Pennsylvania school district merger of any kind since the courts created Woodland Hills a quarter-century ago, and the first truly voluntary district merger ever in the state.

Looking back on the process, Ms. Ronczka and Mr. Gradisek agreed on several points in separate interviews this week: It was much harder than they thought it would be.

"The state is encouraging other districts to look to us as an example," Mr. Gradisek said. "I just hope the example won't discourage others."

The merger, originally approved by the two boards in October 2007, was derailed and nearly killed after Center Area voters elected five new board members that November. The new board majority called a halt to the proceedings, cut off communication with Monaca, demanded numerous changes in the plans and repeatedly threatened to pull out altogether.

A June 2008 compromise rescued the process, and the two boards slowly started building bridges, putting out occasional brush fires over issues like choosing a name and colors for the new district.

"We're getting to be more constructive as a group," Mrs. Ronczka said. "We're coming together more for the same goals."

More recently, the difficulties have come from Monaca's side of the table.

Board president Mike Halama resigned June 11, issuing a letter criticizing the influence of politics on the Center board and accusing the Monaca board members of caving in to Center's demands.

And board members Dan Colville, Jeff Michel and Dennis Bloom all voiced their own discontent at Thursday's Monaca board meeting.

"Everything we said we wouldn't do, we've basically done," Mr. Colville said, noting that Monaca assuaged Center with numerous compromises to keep the merger alive and is now, at Center's behest, going back on its word by agreeing to enact a mercantile tax and raise real estate taxes.

Mr. Gradisek said these recent difficulties have cast a bit of a cloud over the coming historic moment.

"It should be a happy time," he said, "but it looks like it's going to take a while for the line between the two boards to be erased.

The districts have both been losing enrollment, making it harder to offer a full slate of advanced classes and extra-curricular activities. Monaca, with about 700 children, was approaching the crisis point.

"I never stopped believing that this merger would provide the best educational opportunities," Ms. Ronczka said. "The advantages these kids get will far outweigh any discomfort we felt along the way."

Mr. Gradisek said the struggles may have left a negative impression thus far, but noted that already the districts stand to save $1 million a year, and should save more when the middle schools and high schools are combined in 2010.

"When people sit down and look at that, the savings and the improvements in education, I think the impressions will change," he said.

Going forward, the boards need to bury whatever hatchets are left and focus on shared goals.

"I think for the kids, the faculty, the administration, there will be no problem," Mr. Gradisek said. "The rest of us are just going to have to work through it."

Monaca board members tend to see it as a culture clash, one that leaves them fearful.

"We need to think about our place in the new district and how to incorporate what we consider to be the values of Monaca into the new district," Mr. Michel said.

He said later that the Monaca board has a tradition of choosing good leaders and trusting them, and of keeping politics out of the board room; he sees Center's tradition as something quite different.

Ms. Ronczka said she thinks the relationships between the two boards and its individual members have evolved a great deal in the last year.

"I think for the most part they're all pretty good board members," she said. "But we need to try not to get sucked into something more Center-like."

Mr. Gradisek noted that Monaca members will make up half of the Central Valley board initially, even though their district is about one-third Center's size. That will change starting in December -- November's elections will trim the board to 14 members, eight of them from Center -- but it gives them a chance to affect the Central Valley culture.

"As long as they continue to do things the way they do it, the quote-unquote 'right' way, all it takes is one Center member to go with them," he said. "I think after July 1 it will all run smoothly. It will have to; we'll be one board then."

Wednesday's arrival will be more a relief than a celebration.

"At this point I just want it to be over with," Ms. Ronczka said. "July 1 is like this ominous day, always looming out there ahead of us. I just want it to get here."

"It's been sort of like, 'Is this ever going to happen?' " Mr. Gradisek said. He said he didn't really believe it until the state board of education approved it in September and set the official date.