ConVal’s Facilities Committee will take an in-depth look at the district’s two middle schools, Great Brook School and South Meadow School, over the next year to assess the long-term capital needs of each building.
Tom Burgess, a representative from Peterborough, said the Facilities Committee had completed site visits of Great Brook School, South Meadow School, ConVal and the Region 14 CTE center.
“We are gathering data and looking over the architectural report on all facilities, and we’re looking at the long-term needs of these buildings,” Burgess said. “Next year, we will be presenting data about the middle schools and start to talk about what we want to do with them.”
Burgess said the district will undertake an “extensive communication effort” with residents of all nine towns in the ConVal district regarding the future of the middle schools.
“We will be looking at how do people feel about the middle schools? How do we deal with the future of the two middle schools?” Burgess said.
Burgess said the district will host a community forum in the fall to engage residents in long-term planning for the two middle schools.
ConVal has previously considered consolidating the district’s two middle schools because of underenrollment. In 2013, ConVal voters defeated two warrant articles — one proposed by the district, the other by petition — that could have resulted in the closure of Antrim’s Great Brook School and consolidation of the district’s middle schools.
The 2013 warrant article submitted by ConVal proposed changing the district’s Articles of Agreement to enable the board to recommend closing a school operating substantially below capacity, following a closing study and a review of cost savings. Fifty-eight percent of voters supported the proposal, but the article fell short of the two-thirds threshold required to change the articles.
The 2013 petition warrant article, which proposed that the district educate all middle school students in Peterborough and could have resulted in the closure of Great Brook School, received just 37% approval.
A second petition warrant article calling for the closure of Great Brook School and consolidation of the middle schools was submitted by ConVal voters in 2015 but gained only slightly more support, with 40% voting in favor.
In 2024, voters defeated a ConVal warrant article that could have led to the consolidation of the district’s eight elementary schools into four. ConVal has cited resource inequity and high costs as concerns about continuing to operate eight separate elementary schools, all of which are significantly underenrolled.
Great Brook gym
ConVal and the town of Antrim will create a new agreement to share the costs of maintaining the Great Brook gym following a meeting among School Board Chair Mike Hoyt of Bennington, the ConVal facilities director, the Antrim Select Board and the Antrim Recreation Department.
Hoyt said that after reviewing the existing agreement between the district and the town, the ConVal School Board decided the maintenance costs for the gym should be more evenly shared.
“We looked at our field usage agreement, which is also a shared situation based on percentage between Antrim and ConVal, and we decided we should have the same type of agreement with the gym,” Hoyt said.
ConVal Facilities Director Tim Grossi said the district is “bearing a high cost for the gym.”
Hoyt said that going forward, Antrim will “check in with ConVal” before doing any repairs or maintenance on the gym to see if the district can perform or manage projects at a lower cost.
“Antrim has agreed that from now on, any time they are having work done on the gym, they will get the estimates through Tim (Grossi) to make sure they are getting a good value,” Hoyt said. “We think this will work out much better for everyone concerned.”
Positions still open
Superintendent Ann Forrest reported that the district has filled many open positions for the coming school year, including for a fifth-grade science teacher, an assistant principal at PES, and an engineering teacher.
“We are happy to report that we have filled a lot of potions. We still have 20 open positions posted, although some of those are being processed,” Forrest said.
Open positions at ConVal include nursing, coaching, athletic trainer, counselor and administrative positions. Open teaching spots include positions in special education, science, and math.