The Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative School District’s School Board recently voted to recommend amending a warrant article that would support open enrollment in grades 1 through 12, rather than restricting it to grades 9 through 12, and to cap the percentage of students enrolled from out of district at 10% rather than 15%.
At its Feb. 3 meeting, the School Board also recommended approving two warrant articles regarding the district’s operating budget and a collective bargaining agreement between the board and school support staff.
The board also discussed the role technology plays in students’ learning.
Warrant Article 4
Warrant Article 4, concerning open enrollment, spurred debate at the meeting. The board previously recommended adding the article to the district’s budget at the Jan. 20 meeting, but the recent passage of Senate Bill 101 raised further questions.
According to the School Board, Article 4 concerns a program designating grades 9 through 12 at Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative Middle/High School as open enrollment to allow the district to admit non-resident students to the high school. The article also proposes 100% of its eligible resident high school students be permitted to attend the high school, and 0% of its resident students in preschool through grade 12 be permitted to attend schools outside of the district.
The article also limits the number of non-resident students who may attend the high school to no more than 15% of the school’s current enrollment and to allow the administration to set admission standards, criteria and a maximum capacity for each school, grade and program.
“The state recently voted to push open enrollment to Feb. 12,” School Superintendent Peter Weaver told the board. He said the school should make a decision on the matter before then.
On Jan. 29, the New Hampshire Senate passed SB101 on a 14-10 vote. The bill was related to House Bill 751’s proposal to implement universal open enrollment for schools across the state.
Weaver highlighted his concern about the bill. “If it passes, this is a serious issue. I’m seriously worried about the viability of our district,” he said, adding that if the school loses 20 students because their parents move them out of the district, and if each student brings in about $20,000, that loss would total almost $500,000.
Weaver emphasized Article 4’s importance. “Right now I just want to ensure we get this right if this thing happens,” he said. “If the bill doesn’t pass and our community pursues open enrollment, our focus really is to draw kids into the high school.”
School Board member Jonathan Lavoie, from Lyndeborough, said the district shouldn’t shoehorn itself into the warrant article. He said if there are students who want to come in from third or fourth grade, the district won’t have the option to take them in based on how the language of the article is written.
He was worried about the limitations the article placed on grades below the high school level.
School Board Vice Chair Brianne Lavallee raised concerns about changing the language of an article that was already formally agreed upon.
Lavallee was worried that if the bill passes and someone disagrees with the article, that person could bring it to the state and say the School Board didn’t follow proper procedure.
She said the board should still move forward with the warrant article, present it to the towns and see how residents feel about it. “It’s important to get that feedback so we know what to do in the future,” she said.
School Board Chair Dennis Golding said if the state law passes the district won’t need the article because it won’t have a choice in the matter.
At the end of the meeting, the Article 4 was amended and the language was rewritten to align with what the board was looking for.
The School Board will host a public hearing concerning open enrollment at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 10 in the Middle/High School cafeteria.
Warrant Article 5
Warrant Article 5 covered the district operating budget. There was a motion to recommend approving the budget, which totals $16,578,477. The motion passed with six board members voting in favor, one against, and one abstaining.
Lavallee asked about specific staffing changes that impacted the overall budget.
“Residents have reached out and asked about that,” she said, referring to the changes. “You said you could reduce staffing by three full-time positions at the Sept. 23 meeting, and since then, the budget has changed.” She said she wanted to know where those changes are.
Weaver stated the district is eliminating a physical education position, an elementary teaching position and a professional position. “We stand by this budget and fully support moving forward with three less teaching staff,” he said.
Warrant Article 6
Article 6 concerns a collective bargaining agreement between the School Board and support staff. It calls for increases in salaries and benefits at the current staffing levels, though the values listed on the warrant article had a placeholder, pending the business administrator updating the warrant.
The School Board voted 7-1 in favor of adding it.
Other business
The board also discussed misgivings about technology and learning.
Weaver said, “Our data and test scores are flattening, what are we missing? What role does technology have in the learning process?” He said to learn math, students need to engage with as many senses as possible, but when using a computer they’re only using a few senses.
“Are we doing kids a disservice with one-to-one with computers?” he asked. “One-to-one is supposed to solve ADHD and our test scores,” he noted, but claimed that it’s making those areas worse.
School Board member John Zavgren said, “I think the laptop is a bad idea. My children were kept busy by growing and building things. They were busy all the time.”
According to Zavgren, it was his children’s ability to learn that seemed most important. By staying busy, his children were learning how to learn, he said, adding that kids aren’t doing that with a laptop.
Residents from both communities will be able to vote on the proposed warrant articles at the district meeting scheduled for March 7.