The ConVal School Board came to Sharon and suggested to turn down the petition to cap student funding at $29,000 per year per student. Sharon residents asked why it cost over $29,000 to go to ConVal while New Ipswich and Jaffrey residents pay roughly $15,000 a year per student and those schools are closer in proximity to Sharon. 

I asked the board why families pass up a $29,000 scholarship to ConVal and pay roughly $7,000 to attend St. Bernard's of Fitchburg, a charter school or homeschool for their children's education. A representative from Greenfield said his children are doing well at ConVal.  His children must be in the 43% that passed the state proficiency test.  

ConVal is failing.  If it was a a stock company, it would be forced to file for bankruptcy. Towns have filed to withdrawal, enrollment is declining and state test scores are under 50%.

The "suicide pact” signed in the 1960s  is broken and worthless. The Department of Education didn't exist and the teachers union had very little power. Technology was a calculator and a rotary phone. Administrators and teachers worked for the the children and not the bureaucracy. Fund the students not the bureaucracy. As my father would say, “throw the bums out” and give back the authority to the parents and teachers. The School Board is stuck in a quagmire. 

I recommend to put the school system into receivership, blow it up and start anew. There are many intelligent people on the School Board and withdrawal committees that could figure this out for the good of the Monadnock valley and give hope back to the failing children. The charter school my children attended motto was "We teach students how to think not what to think.”

Michael Williamson

Sharon