Overview:
The ConVal School Board has outlined the timeline and next steps for Francestown's withdrawal from the nine-town school district, with the official withdrawal date estimated to be July 1, 2027. Francestown will hold a Special Town Meeting to vote on a warrant which would enable the creation of the new Francestown School Board, and to authorize the board to raise and appropriate funds for the new school district. Francestown has stated it would like to pursue withdrawal from SAU 1 as well, but according to state law, withdrawal from the SAU, which performs administrative functions for the district, is a separate process which cannot be initiated until Francestown has a school board in place.
The ConVal School board has outlined the withdrawal timeline and next steps for Francestown’s departure from what is currently a nine-town school district.
In March, 77% of Francestown voters approved a proposal to withdraw from ConVal, along with 46% of district voters. According to state law, only 40% of district voters needed to approve to enable the proposal to pass.
According to an April 21 statement released by the ConVal School Board’s Communications Committee, the first step in Phase 1 of the withdrawal process is for Francestown to receive a Certificate of Withdrawal from the state Department of Education, which will establish the date of the town’s official withdrawal from the district. The withdrawal date is estimated to be July 1, 2027.
In Phase 2 of the withdrawal process, Francestown will hold a Special Town Meeting to vote on a warrant which would enable the creation of the new Francestown School Board, and to authorize the board to raise and appropriate funds for the new school district.
ConVal School Board Chair Mike Hoyt of Bennington said that Francestown has requested the state Department of Education schedule the Special Town Meeting the same day as the town’s election primary in September.
“They are hoping they can make it all the same day, so they can elect their new school board and then designate a budget for that board, which would allow them to operate until withdrawal officially takes place on July 1,” Hoyt said.
Hoyt said Francestown will submit a list of candidates for the new Francestown School Board to the DOE, but that in the meantime, the state will appoint temporary members so the board can get started on the withdrawal process.
Francestown has stated it would like to pursue withdrawal from SAU 1 as well, but according to state law, withdrawal from the SAU, or School Administrative Unit, which performs administrative functions for the district, is a separate process that cannot be initiated until Francestown has a school board in place.
Until Francestown completes the SAU withdrawal process, SAU 1, which was formerly a one-district SAU serving only the ConVal district, will become a multi-district SAU, serving both the ConVal District and the new Francestown School District.
Curtis Foy of Greenfield, chair of the communications committee, said “The district will look very different by the end of next year.”
“We will be trying to get the word out about how the SAU withdrawal is going to work,” Hamilton said. “There are so many steps that have to be taken between now and then. Francestown will have to create an SAU withdrawal plan, and it will be a similar process to withdrawing from the district.”
In Phase 3 of the withdrawal process, the Francestown School Board and the ConVal School Board will negotiate a formal withdrawal agreement between the town of Francestown and the ConVal School District, as required by state law.
The negotiation phase will include the transfer of Francestown Elementary School to the Town of Francestown.
Hoyt said the contents of the building will be a part of negotiations.
“According to the law, Francestown will get the title back for the school. That includes the building as well as anything that is fixed inside, like the heating system. Anything else still belongs to ConVal. The furniture, the books, computers, curriculum materials, athletic equipment; all of that will be part of the negotiations,” Hoyt said.
According to Hoyt, before the title is transferred, Francestown will be responsible for paying back the initial bond payment for FES, minus the payments they have made so far.
“The building was built as part of a bond issue where several schools were built at the same time, so what Francestown will have to do is pay back that bond amount, minus what they have paid throughout the years,” Hoyt said.
The town will also have to pay back any capital improvements made to FES over the years.
“An example of that would be something like the fire safety system, which went out last year, and which the district paid for,” Hoyt said. “They will have to pay ConVal back for things like that.”
Hoyt said ConVal Business Administrator Neal Cass is working on the exact dollar amounts of Francestown’s financial obligation to the district at withdrawal.
ConVal and Francestown will also negotiate tuition for Francestown’s older students to attend middle school and high school at ConVal schools.
The road to Francestown’s withdrawal
Established in 1969, the ConVal School District consolidated the towns of Antrim, Bennington, Dublin, Francestown, Greenfield, Hancock, Peterborough, Temple and Sharon into one cooperative school district. At 250 square miles, ConVal is one of the largest districts by area in the state, and the only district to include nine towns.
ConVal has eight elementary schools, with Sharon students attending school in Peterborough since the 1920s. The district with the next-highest number of towns, Kearsarge, has seven towns and four elementary schools.
Over the past 20 years, both ConVal voters, by way of petition warrant articles, and the ConVal School Board have floated various proposals to consolidate schools due to consistently rising taxes, but none of the proposals have been supported by voters.
In fall 2023, the ConVal School District hired an outside consulting firm, Prismatic, to evaluate equity in the district and determine whether students in the district’s schools were receiving the same resources and services at every building. Prismatic recommended that ConVal consolidate the district’s eight elementary schools into four to enable more effective use of resources, staff, and transportation, and ensure children in every building had equal opportunity and access to services.
Prismatic recommended the district close schools in Francestown, Bennington, Dublin and Temple and give families in those towns the option of sending children to one of two neighboring schools. At the time, FES had 42 students, Temple Elementary School had 38 students, Pierce Elementary School in Bennington had 61, and Dublin Consolidated School had 55.
The elementary schools in each town have a capacity of over 200 students.
Following Prismatic’s recommendation to consolidate the elementary schools, ConVal presented a warrant article that would have altered the district’s Articles of Agreement, which specify that each town in the district, except Sharon, maintain an elementary school. If the warrant article had passed, the district could have moved forward with potentially closing the four schools.
In 2025, both Francestown and Dublin presented warrant articles proposing that the towns withdraw from ConVal. In Francestown, 81% of voters approved the warrant article, while just 51% of voters in Dublin approved. Francestown began a second attempt at withdrawal soon after the 2025 elections, while Dublin dropped the effort to withdraw.
A group of Temple residents introduced a petition warrant article for withdrawal at Town Meeting 2025, but the article was later rescinded.