Eighteen Sharon residents met with representatives from Prismatic Consulting Tuesday night at the Sharon Town Hall to give feedback about possible changes to the ConVal School District.

Sharon, which has about 300 residents, is the only one of ConVal’s nine towns without an elementary school. Students in Sharon attend Peterborough Elementary School, South Meadow School and ConVal High School.  

“Sharon is actually our small working model of consolidation,” said ConVal School Board member Alan Edelkind of Dublin, chair of ConVal’s Strategic Organization Committee. 

Edelkind attended the meeting on behalf  of Sharon School Board representative  James Frederickson, who was out of town and unable to attend. 

“People in Sharon are very happy with their current consolidation model. They are happy with the fact that their children get a better education at a larger elementary school. The busing works out, and people are happy with it,” Edelkind said. 

ConVal has hired Prismatic to develop strategies, including possible reconfiguration of schools, to address chronic under-enrollment in the district. ConVal High School, which has a capacity of 1,200 students, currently has only 663 students enrolled. Temple Elementary School has the lowest enrollment in the district with 37 students, Francestown Elementary School has 43 students, and Dublin Consolidated School has 55 students. 

The community meetings in the nine ConVal towns are organized as casual, drop-in information sessions, with residents visiting different stations to speak to representatives from Prismatic. Residents are encouraged to come for as long or short a time as they are able to share their thoughts and concerns.

“This was not a traditional setup for a meeting. There were no chairs, no sitting and listening to a long presentation. People had the opportunity to share their feedback and talk to as many representatives from Prismatic as they had time for,” Edelkind said. “It’s very flexible and it makes it very easy for people fit it into their schedule.”

Prismatic will release the results of all meetings in December. 

All ConVal residents are encouraged to fill out the online survey developed by Prismatic about their priorities, needs and concerns for the district. The survey is available until Sept. 29 at schoolboard.convalsd.net/2023/09/19/consolidation-reconfiguration-project-individual-town-meetings-and-on-line-survey. An additional follow-up survey will be released in October after the first round of community feedback meetings. 

Upcoming meetings

Greenfield Elementary School, Wednesday, Sept. 20.

Antrim Elementary School, Thursday, Sept. 21.

Peterborough Elementary School, Tuesday, Sept. 26.

Francestown Elementary School, Wednesday, Sept. 27.

Temple Elementary School,  Thursday, Sept. 28.

Bennington, Monday, Oct. 2, Pierce School.

Dublin Consolidated School, Wednesday, Oct. 4.

Hancock Elementary School, Thursday, Oct. 5.

All meetings are at 7 p.m. For information about the ConVal consolidation and reconfiguration study, visit schoolboard.convalsd.net.