The ConVal School Board has put revisiting potential scenarios for reconfiguration of the district back on the agenda for 2025.
Jim Fredrickson, school board representative from Sharon, reported at Tuesday night’s meeting that the Budget and Property Committee is continuing to find ways to consolidate resources and increase efficiency in the district going into 2025-2026.
Voters in the district’s nine towns defeated a 2024 warrant article which could have led to the consolidation of ConVal’s eight elementary schools into four. Students in Dublin, Bennington, Francestown and Temple would have been given the choice of attending either a larger or a smaller school in a neighboring town.
In the aftermath of the vote, Francestown and Dublin pursued leaving the district, but both proposals were rejected during the March 11 election. At 81%, Francestown cleared the 60% town approval required, but the 38% of district voters overall who approved was short of the 40% needed. Dublin’s proposal only had 51% approval in town, and 37% overall.
The board stated in spring of 2024 that further discussion of reconfiguration would be tabled until after the feasibility studies for withdrawal requested by Dublin and Francestown had been completed and the board knew the results of the 2025 election.
The ConVal district is considered to be significantly underenrolled, with buildings operating at about 40% of capacity. Some schools, including those in Temple and Francestown, currently have fewer than 50 students in buildings designed to hold 200 students.
“The Budget and Property Committee is going to look at structure of the district’s of pre-K programs. We’re going to look at elementary schools from standpoints of grade-shifting, and we’re going to look at upcoming big building programs, such as the CTE project. We don’t want to lose our opportunity there,” Fredrickson said. “We may look at ways of combining the middle schools and the high school. We may look at combining two middle schools into one, and we may look into combining three big buildings into two. There are a lot of possibilities, including some ideas recently put forward by the Temple School Committee, that we are going to consider and look into going forward.”
Fredrickson said the Budget and Property Committee will also be doing “deep dives” into areas such as transportation, health care and special education, all of which caused budget increases in 2024.
Curtis Hamilton, school board representative from Greenfield, reported that the Selectman’s Advisory Committee discussed the recent petition warrant article passed by Temple residents which requests Temple “initiate a feasibility study of Temple’s withdrawal” from the ConVal School District.
The petition warrant article was signed by 32 residents.
Hamilton said the SAC discussed the results of the recent election as well as the feasibility study requested by Temple.
“The forthcoming withdrawal study was discussed, and committee inquired about the start date for this process. We discussed how the feasibility study for Temple could be streamlined, given we went through this same process last year,” Hamilton said. “We also plan to discuss possibilities for reconfiguration as permitted by the Articles of Agreement.”
Hamilton said that in 2025 the SAC will also be looking at “New Hampshire’s over-reliance on property taxes” and at ConVal’s apportionment formula.
“The SAC stopped meeting last year due to the feasibility and withdrawal studies, and we are now meeting again. We’re looking forward to meeting again and taking on some of the larger issues we face as a district,” Hamilton said.
Board Chair Mike Hoyt noted there has been a rapid succession of education bills proposed and passed in the state Legislature, and encouraged the public to stay informed about the changes and reach out to their legislators with any concerns.
“I’m sure everyone has been following the recent activities affecting education in the state Legislature,” Hoyt said. “We’re hoping our committee and board members can help people understand what is happening in the Legislature, and let them know how we feel about what they are trying to do.”