Rindge petition article seeks study of withdrawal from school district

Robert Oeser.

Robert Oeser. —STAFF FILE PHOTO BY ASHLEY SAARI

By ASHLEY SAARI

Monadnock Ledger-Transcript

Published: 01-21-2025 12:04 PM

A petition warrant article is asking Rindge residents to initiate a study on withdrawing from the Jaffrey-Rindge Cooperative School District and analyze what it would cost for the town to educate its own students.

The petition, submitted by resident Roberta Oeser, is similar to a withdrawal study done in 2019. At the time, Oeser was a member of the Select Board, and represented the Rindge Select Board on that committee. Ultimately, the committee voted unanimously to remain with the district, after determining the potential expenses of the town striking out on its own.

Oeser said it’s time to revisit that discussion, saying that there were options left unexplored, or that circumstances may have changed in the past five years, making it a more-viable option. She said there was one main driving force behind seeking to redo the study now.

“It’s financial,” she said. “It’s money.”

Oeser said this year’s proposed budget gave her sticker shock, between the proposed budget and warrant articles, which includes an updated teacher contract. Oeser said Rindge residents can’t afford the continued increase on their taxes, among other issues she has with the district.

The currently proposed budget for 2025-2026 is $33.76 million, which is about a $1.3 million, or 4.13%, increase from the current budget. It includes increases to teacher pay that were part of previous collective bargaining agreements.

Previous studies on the issue

The town has done two studies on withdrawal, both which ultimately resulted in keeping the district together – one in 2000, and the other in 2019. The 2000 study considered whether Rindge could afford to build its own high school/middle school and become a independent school system, and the study found it was “educationally unsound and fiscally not feasible,” with tax impacts estimated to be twice the costs to Rindge for the shared high school. That study did not look at alternatives such as paying tuition to or joining other school districts besides Jaffrey-Rindge.

In 2019, the district considered the issue again, following a petition article. The article, which required the town to initiate a study of the feasibility and suitability of a plan for the dissolution of the school district, passed 620-430 in Rindge. That study considered the potential costs of using the Rindge Memorial School for grades pre-K through five, and tuitioning students to another district for grades six to 12.

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An estimated financial comparison of what it would take for Rindge to stand alone as a district looked at a 15-year forecast. According to the report compiled by the study committee, the cost for a stand-alone district ranged between $21,973,916 to $27,482,225, depending on the year and number of students. That was about $10 million more per year than staying with the district.

Ultimately, the committee voted 6-0 (with one member absent) to not recommend withdrawal, finding “no educational advantage,” and “significant financial disadvantage to the Town of Rindge.”

Oeser said she’d like to see a new study committee look at possibilities that weren’t explored last time, including possibly tuitioning Rindge students to schools in Massachusetts. She said that at the time, the ConVal Regional School District was not interested in accepting the entirety of the Rindge school population, but that situation may now be different, as the district is grappling with two of its member towns – Dublin and Francestown – looking at possibly withdrawing from the district.

“I just want to explore all the opportunities that are open,” Oeser said.

Jaffrey School Board member John McCarthy, who was also a member of the withdrawal committee in 2019, said things have not shifted enough that the facts of the matter have significantly changed. McCarthy said the past few years since the study have seen some shifts in education, including the implementation of the school choice voucher system and the pandemic, but said they are unlikely to result in a different outcome for the cost of withdrawing.

“Financially, I don’t think things have changed. I think it would still be very expensive for both towns. There is a cost even to do the study – we’ll spend a bunch of money and time that could be better spent doing other things,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy said the article was a “distraction” from other big decisions before the district this year, namely a proposal to build a new addition onto the middle/high school for expanded career and technical education training.

Other issues with the district

Oeser said one of the reasons that Rindge staying with the district five years ago made sense was that the district was in the midst of paying off a bond for Rindge Memorial School. That bond is on the cusp of being paid off, and the district has not yet taken on other major debt. However, a proposed bond for a new Career and Technical Education Center, is on the warrant this year.

“The timing is important, because at the moment, there is no long-term debt, and we wouldn’t be responsible for debt incurred,” Oeser said.

Oeser said one of her other main conflicts with the district is how it handles returning excess funds to the taxpayers. If the district has excess funds at the end of the year, one of the potential uses is to offset taxes. The funds are returned to the towns based on the district’s apportionment formula. Oeser said when returning the funds, the district does not take into account the higher amount of state aid Jaffrey receives, which means that of the Jaffrey portion, a smaller percentage is directly from taxpayers. She said this results in an unfair situation when money is returned.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.