Parents and community members provided feedback on Prismatic Consulting’s reconfiguration study on the ConVal district during a public forum Monday night in the Lucy Hurlin Theater at ConVal High School.

Prismatic’s report recommends that the district’s four smallest elementary schools – in Francestown, Bennington, Temple and Dublin -- merge with other elementary schools in the district. Each student in a closing school would have a choice of attending two other schools. The report recommends that the middle schools and ConVal High School continue to operate the way they are now. 

Alan Edelkind, the Dublin representative to the School Board and chair of ConVal’s Strategic Organization Committee, read a statement about the role and process of the School Board and administration .

“We are here to serve the ConVal community. We are here to do the best job possible, provide the best, most cost-effective and  and safest educational environment. We must also be open and transparent in our communication before during and after our activities. This forum is an opportunity to do just that – communicate and inform. But have you ever asked, ‘Who is the School Board?’ We are just like all of you. We are ConVal community residents. We live in the ConVal community. We raise our children here, we pay taxes here, and we enjoy living in this community. We are here to serve you, ” Edelkind stated.

ConVal hired Prismatic, a North Carolina-based educational consulting company, in June. Through December, Prismatic assessed the condition of the district through school visits, focus groups, community forums, interviews with staff and administrators, online and in-person surveys and analysis of factors including food service, physical plants, transportation, special education, technology and other factors. 

Tatia Prieto, founder and president of Prismatic Services, presented the findings of the 400-page assessment, which is available at schoolboard.convalsd.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2023/12/ConVal-Reconfiguration-Study-Full-Report-20231205.pdf. She said the “hard facts” of the ConVal district are that according to projections from the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) and the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs (NHDBEA) , the population of school-age children in the ConVal district is not projected to grow significantly in the next 10 years. The NHDBEA projects a gain of fewer than 1,000 people in the district through 2035. 

“It is unlikely they will come,” Prieto said, noting that ConVal’s schools are currently running at about half-capacity.

Prieto said that according to comments and feedback from middle school and high school students about their experiences attending the district’s smallest elementary schools, the small size was not a factor in their positive experience.

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“The students talked about their teachers, and they talked about their friends. They mentioned having more opportunities to make friends at larger school, ” Prieto said.

Prieto said the 1967 Articles of Agreement that created the ConVal district are unusual, as they give the voters, not the School Board, the final say in any reconfiguration of elementary schools. Any recommendation put forth by the School Board to change the number of elementary schools will need a two-thirds majority vote across the entire district in order to pass.

Gary Gorski, a member of the Peterborough Planning Board, said the projected population numbers were inaccurate.

“This report has nothing to do with  the local economy and the local housing market. The population across the entire district is going to grow. My own neighborhood has grown; people work remotely. There should have been an entire report about the local housing,” Gorski said.  “The only thing we need to worry about is, are our schools big enough to handle the kids who are coming? The Peterborough pre-K is full. I don’t understand the population projections.” 

Gorski said Peterborough has more than 400 new housing units in the planning stage. School Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders said that in her 15 years of experience, NESDEC numbers are usually accurate within 15 to 20 students. 

“NESDEC is looking at birth rates, cohort survival, student in-migration and out-migration, the effects of vouchers, the effect of private schools. They are not necessarily looking at the things Gary talking about,” Rizzo Saunders said. 

Several community members asked about the cost and effect of “mothballing” the schools slated to be closed, how the closed schools would be used and how resources would be allocated. Other participants asked why the option of closing the two middle schools was not recommended instead of closing elementary schools. Prieto responded that the closing the middle schools “would not solve the problem,” as so few students would be returning to the elementary schools. 

Ellie Larabee-Byers, a Francestown resident and mother of five, said her children had benefited from the small classes at Francestown Elementary School and expressed concern that they could be going back into larger classes at a different school. Laramee-Byers also asked how bus routes would be impacted and if there was an increased risk of motor vehicle accidents associated with increased bus travel time. 

When several parents questioned how the district could address the attrition of students to private schools, charter schools and homeschooling, School Board Chair Dick Dunning of Peterborough, the former South Meadow School principal, responded that providing the best educational experience for the students has always been the district’s top priority.

“I have been in this district for 41 years, as a teacher , then as a administrator, and on the school board  for nine, and I can tell you, our staff is doing the best they can to provide the best education they can for their students,” Dunning said.

Rizzo Saunders said she would love to develop a program to address attrition and had proposed a development program in recent years,  but “would not be able to do it without funds to do so.”

John Wood of Dublin suggested that the School Board consult with an attorney to make sure they were complying with the 2019 warrant article calling for a study of options for reconfiguration in the district.

“I will be consulting with a lawyer, and I strongly suggest the school board does as well, because it does say in the warrant article that you must pose this to the voters to approve this  analysis, not to the School Board, and it says the voters must approve this prior to making any recommendation. ‘Prior’ is underlined on your website. This potentially could mean, legally, that you might have to wait one more year,” Wood said. 

The ConVal School Board is scheduled to meet to accept Prismatic’s report and discuss the recommendation on Dec. 13. On Dec. 19, the board is scheduled to vote on accepting the recommendation in the report and writing a warrant article for district residents to vote on March 12, 2024.

Dunning noted that the Articles of Agreement require a specific timeline around creating a warrant article, and that the School Board is bound to this timeline. 

More information about the ConVal reconfiguration study and process is available at the School Board website.