If reconfiguration results in the ConVal School District closing any of its schools – the current recommendation is for Francestown Elementary School, Dublin Consolidated School, Pierce School in Bennington and Temple Elementary School to close – under state law, a charter school would have right of first refusal to acquire the building. 

The district is already home to one charter school – Lionheart Classical Academy in Peterborough – and ConVal Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders said that across the state, 125 students who live in the ConVal district attend charter schools.

“Fifty percent of them have never attended ConVal before,” she said.

A further 137 students from the ConVal district receive money from Education Freedom Accounts, for a total of $561,700. EFAs provide money for families with incomes at or below 350% of the federal poverty level to attend private schools, home-school their children or provide extracurricular activities including arts, music, sports and field trips. Rizzo Saunders said 98% of those students have never attended ConVal.

According to Rizzo Saunders, the district still has to provide services such as special education to students in charter schools, including an average of $6,000 per month at one charter, which she said would be more efficient if it was in a ConVal school.

Charter schools are public schools, but do not receive funding through taxes. Instead, the state budget passed last year provides approximately $9,000 per student – a $4,100 base adequacy grant and $4,900 in the supplemental charter school grant. Rizzo Saunders said that charter schools and Education Freedom Accounts have been promoted as providing a choice, which she said parents should have.

“No one is saying that choice isn’t important, but if there’s going to be choice, it has to be on a level playing field,” she said.

Possibility of charter schools

School Board member Janine Lesser of Peterborough said she is terrified that there are people who could walk in with $3 million to turn a vacant school building into a charter, “but we still have to move forward” with reconfiguration in order to make ConVal an excellent educational choice for families.

Opponents of the district’s reconfiguration plan have also cited charter schools as a reason for their opposition. During a reconfiguration hearing in February, former state legislator Gordon Allen of Antrim said, “We have a concerted and well-funded effort in this state, and around the country, to destroy public education. If you want to see a downward spiral of public education, [closing elementary schools] is providing a great opportunity for that to happen.”

At that same hearing, state Rep. Jonah Wheeler of Peterborough said, “I think there exists a very real concern that the charter school movement would come for these schools that are closed.”

In spite of state law, School Board Chairman Dick Dunning of Peterborough believes towns would have right of first refusal over the buildings, due to a clause in ConVal’s 1967 Articles of Agreement that states, “School property cannot be disposed of without the town in which such property is located having the right of first refusal at a price not to exceed the fair market value as determined by an impartial agency, public or private.”

“I’m not buying the fact that you can come in and take our building,” he said.

L. Phillips Runyon III of Peterborough, former presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court, stated that the issue may need to be decided in court. On one hand, he stated that a state statute would seem to pre-empt a school district's rules; but since the ConVal Articles of Agreement pre-dated the statute allowing charters the right of first refusal, perhaps the articles could be considered "grandfathered" and take precedence.

Edelblut weighs in

Dunning said charter schools are a drain on the coffers of traditional public schools, but state Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said public schools get all the money they are entitled to under state law, and that citing charter schools as a drain implies that money which was supposed to go to traditional schools goes elsewhere.

“Nothing is being diverted,” he said.

Edelblut also said one thing to consider is that charter schools have wait lists.

“I would encourage traditional public schools to create an offering that families are clamoring to get into,” he said.

As to the possibility of charter schools in vacated buildings, Edelblut said he would support any education option that is good for students.

“If that is a charter school that has a mission that these families are interested in, it’s good that they’re supporting these families,” he said, adding that he would want the same for traditional public schools.

Regarding the ConVal reconfiguration plan, he said it is appropriate for the district to go through the process before circumstances become more urgent, particularly in light of declining enrollments throughout the state.

“They’re not the first and only district that has to deal with this,” he said.

Although Edelblut said his department stands ready to help ConVal whatever the result, he would not say how he would vote if he lived in the district.

“That’s up to the taxpayers in that school district,” he said.