Select board and community members from Temple, Dublin and Francestown indicated at Thursday’s ConVal Strategic Organization Committee meeting that their towns may consider leaving the ConVal School District if the proposed warrant article recommending closing Francestown Elementary School, Dublin Consolidated School, Pierce School in Bennington and Temple Elementary School passes.

“Your board needs to think about the fact that the towns most at risk from this proposal might pull out if this goes through,” said Blake Anderson of Dublin.

The SOC, chaired by School Board member Alan Edelkind of Dublin, met with select board members and community representatives from Temple, Dublin, Francestown and Bennington to hear concerns and questions about the consolidation plan. Bill Ezell, chair of the Temple Select Board, also said the town could consider leaving if the closures pass, and read a letter stating that his board was “astounded that you have selected schools in four of our towns to be closed without any apparent consideration of the effect on our towns.”  

Scot Heath, chair of the Francestown Select Board, said Francestown is  “universally opposed” to the warrant article and that “we will be advising our constituency to vote against it.” 

Multiple select board members expressed the belief that the study completed by Prismatic Services had a predetermined outcome, and questioned the School Board at length about why they did not propose closing middle schools rather than elementary schools. 

“The perception in Temple is that this was all pre-planned, and that no other options were given serious consideration. We know the district is going to reach a breaking point with the budget, but we are not sure closing the elementary schools is the best option,” Ezell said. 

School Board Chair Dick Dunning of Peterborough said “there was no pre-conceived decision” on reconfiguration. 

“We did not tell Prismatic how to do things. We didn’t tell them how to run their meetings. We got out of their way,” Dunning said.  “What we need is to hear from the taxpayers on this.  We have to represent all the towns, and all the taxpayers, not just these four towns. The taxpayers need to tell us what they want us to do, and we’ll do it.” 

School Board member Janine Lesser of Peterborough said the board had weighed the option of closing middle schools, but that the model did not make sense financially. 

“It would still be more teachers for tiny classes; it doesn’t solve anything. In the middle schools, the teachers are  teaching 80 or 90 kids each day. If you move that teacher back to the elementary school, they would be teaching five or six kids,” Lesser said. 

ConVal Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders noted that 85% of the school budget is salaries. 

Chris Raymond of the Dublin Select Board questioned the high cost per student in Dublin, which is currently $39,000, including all students K-to-12.  Rizzo Saunders explained how the  cost per student in individual towns is affected by special education. 

“In any given year, any town in the district could be what you could call donor town or  a receiver town.  It goes back and forth, depending on the requirements for special education. Every single town has had a student at some point whose educational needs have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Rizzo Saunders said.

Rizzo Saunders noted that towns are still required to pay costs for special education, including transportation,  for students who attend charter schools or whose families receive Education Freedom Account funds. Dunning said the School Board cannot discuss the current costs per student in specific towns because of confidentiality.  

In response to a lengthy discussion about the potential tax savings of consolidation to families and towns, Liz Swann, School Board representative  from Temple, said the primary focus of the reconfiguration study was to determine if all elementary students in the district were receiving the same educational services and support.

“Savings and taxes are not the primary goal. The goal  is to allocate to the resources more wisely,” Swann said.  “This is about the quality of education we can offer our students.” 

Mike Hoyt, School Board representative from Bennington, described the district’s thinly spread resources. 

“We have teachers spread out over eight towns. We have special education support people, speech therapists, occupational therapists – who waste half their time traveling, trying to cover three schools. They spend more time in the car than they do with students.  The way our district is set up, there are a lot of things that are  just a huge waste of time and energy, and unproductive in getting the students the services they need,” Hoyt said. 

Sue Peters of the Dublin Select Board said she appreciated the explanations about allocation of resources. 

“The point is well taken. You all need to make a better case for us,” she said. 

Ezell agreed.

“Communication on this issue has been a failure of your board,” he said. 

ConVal will host a public hearing on the proposed budget at 6 p,m, on Jan. 9, followed by a hearing on the proposed changes to the articles of agreement. The proposed change would call for the district to have elementary schools in Antrim, Greenfield, Hancock and Peterborough, instead of all eight towns.

For information, go to schoolboard.conval.edu.