The ConVal Withdrawal Committee responded to the Francestown School Committee’s education plan Thursday night with questions about staffing, preschool and SAU services.
On Sept. 11, members of the Francestown School Committee presented their plan to the Withdrawal Committee, which includes a school board member and a select board member from each town in the ConVal district. Francestown is asking the ConVal School Board to approve the proposal so the town can bring a withdrawal article to district voters in March.
The state requires any town seeking to leave its district to present an education plan outlining how students will be educated if the withdrawal is approved. If the ConVal board does not support Francestown’s proposal, the town can still submit a minority opinion to the Department of Education. In 2024, the ConVal board rejected both Francestown’s and Dublin’s withdrawal plans, but the DOE approved minority opinions for both towns.
The Withdrawal Committee is scheduled to vote on Francestown’s request Thursday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. in the SAU conference room behind South Meadow Middle School.
In March 2025, both Francestown and Dublin put forward withdrawal articles. Francestown’s article received 81% approval from voters in town but only 38% districtwide, failing by 80 votes. Dublin’s article drew 51% support locally and 37% across the district. For an article to pass, it must receive at least 60% approval in the withdrawing town or 40% overall in the district.
The FSC’s presentation of their education plan included findings from the committee’s research into the feasibility of running a small, independent school district consisting only of Francestown Elementary School. Elementary school students in preschool through fifth grade would attend FES, which the town intends to purchase from ConVal. Middle and high school students would continue at Great Brook Middle School and ConVal High School on a tuition basis.
To build their plan, FSC members visited and met with administrators in three small towns that have withdrawn from larger consolidated school districts.
“We just see it very differently from ConVal,” Laura Mafera, a member of the FSC, said after last Thursday’s meeting. “In meeting with these other little schools, we have learned that it can be done. When we are talking about schools that are this tiny, with just 40 or 50 kids, it just does not require the scale that ConVal is used to thinking about; it does not require nearly the amount of work they are used to dealing with. It is just kind of a whole different situation.”
Mafera stressed that the education plan presented by the FSC “is not an implementable plan.” A newly elected school board would make decisions about how the Francestown School District would operate.
“It was really kind of a rough draft of what could happen. We are not the Francestown School Board; that board will have to be elected by the town,” Mafera said. “But we are really putting pen to paper and doing our research and making sure we can really do this.”
Mafera reiterated that Francestown “does not have a problem with the ConVal district.”
“We just want to keep our school,” she said.
ConVal has considered consolidating its eight elementary schools several times in the past two decades, including proposals that would have sent Francestown students to schools in Greenfield or Antrim.
At the meeting, the Withdrawal Committee presented their questions about the FSC’s presentation, including differing opinions about the number of staff that will be needed to run FES, the practicality of finding staff who can serve in multiple roles and the finances of preschool and special education.
Dr. Ann Forrest, superintendent of the ConVal district, in a statement to the Withdrawal Committee, said she estimates Francestown’s proposed total staffing is $144, 660 lower than it should be to fully staff FES.
“In general, it seems the final calculation for the staffing model is too low, potentially significantly. … I worry that Francestown may not realize, and therefore is not accounting for, some of the benefits that they have accessed because they are a part of the ConVal School District,” Forrest wrote.
Forrest questioned how Francestown will provide staff for music, physical education, health, library, art, nursing, counseling, psychology, reading specialists, bookkeeping and special education services.
Forrest also stated that she felt the FSC had “misunderstood” ConVal’s First Friends preschool model, which provides special education services, including occupational therapy, speech therapy and services by a school psychologist and school social worker, to all students enrolled in the program.
“Is the intention that Francestown’s preschool program will be tuition neutral? If yes, does that mean no costs for preschool were partof Francestown’s staffing model calculations and the financial feasibility calculations? ConVal’s First Friends Preschool Program is not tuition neutral. The average per student cost for preschoolers for the 2024-2025 school year was approximately $21,000,” Forrest wrote.
For information about the ConVal School district, visit schoolboard.conval.edu/en-US.