With voting on a petition to study Peterborough’s withdrawal from the district set for Tuesday, the ConVal School Board and its Selectmen’s Advisory Committee are making their support for staying together known.
With the exception of two abstentions, the ConVal School Board voted in favor of a statement responding to the petition on the Peterborough ballot. A motion to approve the statement passed with little discussion at the school board meeting Tuesday night.
Peterborough representatives on the board, Richard Dunning and Thomas Kelly, abstained from voting. Dunning has said he supports the petition, though he is not a member of the Committee of Concerned Citizens, which brought the petition forward.
Chair of the ad-hoc Communications Committee Crista Salamy told the school board that the committee chose to focus on facts in preparing the statement.
“Our current organizational structure poses significant challenges to the district’s ability to provide every child with an excellent and equitable education,” reads the statement, referencing how the board recently described the challenge the district is facing.
The statement continues, “We still believe that the existing membership of the ConVal School District is best for our children and we are confident that together we can rise to the challenge of creating a solution that continues to provide our children with a high-quality education.” (The full statement appears on Page 9).
Hancock Select Board member John Jordan reported to the board a 4-1 vote the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee had recently taken on a statement of its own:
“The Selectmen’s Advisory Committee is very concerned about the negative impact on the Strategic Plan, and the immediate and future impacts on the towns of the Conval School District. Therefore, the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee opposes the withdrawal of any town from the Conval School District.”
Temple Select Board member Gail Cromwell was the dissenting vote on the SAC statement.
“My first reaction was I didn’t think it was appropriate to interfere with what the town wanted to vote on,” Cromwell said Wednesday. “There’s some issues with ConVal we need to talk about, and this may be a doorway to open up that conversation.”
Cromwell said the school board isn’t talking about what’s not working with the district. “There’s a lot of dissatisfaction out there,” she said.
The question people are asking is whether the ConVal School District has outlived its usefulness, she said. “Maybe it has.”
But Hancock Select Board member John Jordan, who chairs the Select Board Advisory Committee, and other SAC members worry the study will open a can of worms that will require a lot of work, effort and legal assistance to answer, all at the expense of the district.
“And this has all got to be done in six months. Good luck!,” Jordan said, referring to the withdrawal study. “[Peterborough’s] withdrawal is just going to mean, frankly, disintegration of the district. Antrim is going to go one way, Hancock – we’re in the middle. I don’t know which way we’re going to go.”
Jordan said working with the district’s Strategic Plan is the way to go.
If a majority of Peterborough voters approve the petition to study the financial and educational impacts of the town withdrawing from the district, the district is required by state law to perform the study. It is the first step in a formal withdrawal process that would require N.H. Department of Education approval and another vote.
A simple majority of voters of the district is required for withdrawal to be finalized, according to RSA 195:29.
Also on the Peterborough warrant is a request for $20,000 for a consultant to independently review a withdrawal plan the study might produce.
The school board statement explains what the withdrawal study will mean for the district in terms of the steps that will need to be taken, and how the district’s five-year Strategic Plan would be impacted: “The entire process [of withdrawal] will take two years, essentially preventing the district from moving forward with accomplishing current goals contained within the district’s Strategic Plan.”
According to RSA 195:28, if Peterborough withdrew from the district it would be responsible for the costs of capital improvements and additions to the three school buildings in town – ConVal High School, South Meadow School and Peterborough Elementary School – which the district estimates is $29.4 million. Peterborough would be responsible for its remaining share of the debt service as well, which is about $875,000, according to the district.
Peterborough’s ballot voting will take place May 10, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Town House. The open session will take place 7 p.m. at the Town House.