On March 12, we will vote on a Conval District warrant article that, if it passes, will allow the School Board to close four elementary schools in the district: Bennington (Pierce School), Francestown Elementary, Temple Elementary and the Dublin Consolidated school. The recommendation from the consulting company, Prismatic, based their findings almost entirely on financial concerns, and I understand that.

Running eight elementary schools is expensive, but I believe the money saved, which does not add up to much for individual tax bills, is not worth the damage to the four communities – families, children, staff, future residents and even the school district. It is wrongheaded to take elementary schools out of towns that are working hard to find ways to bring more families to town. Just in Dublin, our Housing Committee is full of ideas, and the community center is growing, offering more and more ways to help our community come together. 

Nobody has come up with any options for the small schools besides closing or not closing. I think we can do some more-creative thinking about how to keep the schools open by joining forces with other organizations. It seems to me that the study did not entertain any creative ideas, and I think there are a lot of them out there. The major issue is that the schools are only half-full in many cases. I have thought about other ways to use the extra space since I was teaching principal at DCS (2004-2015).

We used to have a business incubator at the high school as part of the Tech Center. I don’t know exactly why it went away, but I always wondered if it would be possible to open the school’s doors to a new small business. DCS rented space to the Dublin Preschool for a few years back in the early 2000s.

All our communities have a crying need for elder care. What if we could run an adult day care center in the school? I envision the need for some minor renovations – the toilets in the primary grade classrooms are tiny, and we would need a way to close off each hallway (one for elders, one for kids) in case there was something going on where it wouldn’t be safe to have the groups mixing. But otherwise, the two generations would be able to be together in the same building, each able to visit the other. Grandparents in the classroom do wonders for behavior management, and oldsters could read with youngsters in either venue. I think this is an exciting possibility, and it might even have the potential for some income for the school district.

I am sure there are other ideas just as good out there. Let’s vote down the warrant article and buy ourselves a little time to flesh out one of these possibilities and keep our elementary school alive with some creative thinking and lots of energy. 

Mary (May) Clark is a Dublin resident.