Describing the town’s outlays for education in the ConVal School District, Gail Cromwell of the Temple School Study Committee said, “The cost is killing us.”

The committee has proposed ideas to address expenses and space considerations in ConVal’s schools, and Cromwell and Pam Kingston met with the Antrim Select Board Monday to explain their reasoning for realigning where various grades might attend school in the district. 

Temple’s report states that enrollment continues to fall and the budget keeps going up, and Cromwell said that the decline in student numbers is expected to continue for the next 10 years. Kingston also expressed concern with rising costs in the face of what she called “substandard test scores” in the district.

“We need people to think in other ways, instead of just rubber-stamping everything put before them,” Kingston said.

Temple’s proposition includes middle school grades being relocated to ConVal High School, which the committee’s report cited as being at 53% capacity, and projected to drop over time given demographic projections.

“With the high school so underpopulated, why don’t we fill it up and use it?” Cromwell said.

Michelle Cilley Foisy, Carol Mamczak and Vivian Wills and Peter Allen were also on the committee, which suggested that sending all seventh- and eighth-graders at South Meadow School and Great Brook School to the high school would bring enrollment in grades seven through 12 to 912, and including grade six from from both schools would raise it to 1,048.

In 2006, ConVal’s enrollment in its current building approached 1,200 students. Having middle school students in the high school would also afford them access to accelerated courses there, Cromwell said.  

At the elementary level, the Temple committee suggested transferring Peterborough Elementary School students to South Meadow School.

“Peterborough Elementary is one of our oldest buildings with considerable physical needs” the report said, noting SMS to be a “better” building that would still be well under capacity.

Antrim Elementary School is at 60% capacity according to the report, and the Temple committee proposed that those students could be educated at Great Brook, eliminating the need for the AES building. This change would require 12 classrooms to be available for the elementary students, “considerably less than the 27 available at GBS.” This would also allow Antrim to expand its pre-K program if it chose to, the report stated. 

Cromwell said the Temple committee had one initial goal.

“We simply want to start a conversation about these issues,” she said, adding that the Prismatic reconfiguration study last year did not consider changes at larger schools in the district, only those in smaller communities.

The Prismatic study led to a recommendation from the School Board to change the district’s Articles of Agreement that could have led to closing the elementary schools in Dublin, Temple, Bennington and Francestown. The proposal failed at the ballot box in March, and in the aftermath, Dublin and Francestown proposed withdrawing from the district. The ConVal Feasibility Study Committee recently recommended against withdrawal to the state Board of Education, although members of the minority will also be allowed to submit opinions.

If the state Board of Education recommends withdrawal, the issue will go to a vote in March. If either town’s residents and more than 50% of voters across the district support withdrawal, or 60% in either town vote in favor and fewer than 60% across the district vote against withdrawal, the measure would pass.

Temple had considered calling a special Town Meeting to vote on a feasibility study regarding withdrawal, but Select Board Chair Bill Ezell previously said it would be unlikely after low response to notice on the town’s website.

Kingston said that the changes proposed could be made by the School Board and would not require warrant articles in order to be affected.

“We’re not looking at changing the Articles of Agreement,” she said.

The Antrim Select Board expressed its appreciation for the committee’s efforts and received copies of the report which is available on Temple’s town website, templenh.gov.