The ConVal School District will eliminate 11 teaching positions in the 2025-2026 school year in order to cut costs, interim Superintendent Ann Forrest said Tuesday night. 

Six of the positions being eliminated are in the district’s eight elementary schools. While both Francestown and Dublin are looking to withdraw from the ConVal district, subject to a vote in March, that change would not go into effect until fall 2026. 

“Last year, we created a warrant article to reconfigure schools, but  the voters made it clear they really value their elementary schools. The board will honor what they heard from the community, so we are now looking at creating a sustainable model for these schools,” Forrest said.

Forrest said that according to current projections, the elimination of six teaching positions will result in 40 total elementary school classes in the district, with many of them changing to a multi-age model. 

“Seventy percent of these classes will still have enrollment below recommended class size guidelines, and 30% would fall within recommended class size guidelines,” Forrest said. 

Forrest added that she is “absolutely embracing” the multi-age classroom model as a way to sustain the district’s small elementary schools. 

“We need to reframe how we think about multi-grade classes, and think about how we approach and do things,” she said. “Multi-age classrooms are not a new thing. There is a long history of it with one-room schools, and  there is research to support that it is an effective model. The challenge is thinking about barriers, how can we best support teachers to be effective. There are also curriculums that are designed for K to two, three to five. There is value to multi-grade classes; I would argue that it is not the best thing socially to have the same seven or eight kids together for five or six years. Kids don’t just learn from their teachers; they also learn from their peers. It is better socially to have a large group.”

The board approved a fiscal 2026 operating budget of approximately $59 million and a total gross budget, including mandatory state and federal programs such as Title I & II and federal food service, of slightly under $61.4 million, at Tuesday night’s meeting. The portion that will be assessed to district towns is approximately $46.1 million. The increase in the operating budget is approximately $1.79 million, and the increase to the gross budget is $591,308.

Budget and Property Committee Chair Jim Fredrickson of Sharon said the increase in the school budget is mostly due to costs which are out of the district’s control. Increases in health insurance premiums for faculty and staff added  $1.24 million to the budget, and increased transportation costs added $770,304. 

“For people to say we are not controlling our operational costs is just not true. We can’t control what we can’t control,” Fredrickson said. “The increase in health insurance costs and the increase in transportation costs are equal to the entire increase in this year’s budget. Unfunded state and federal mandates also account for a significant portion of the school budget. The feds and the state give us new requirements every year, but that have to be funded at the local level and get thrown on the taxpayers.”

Answering questions about the increases in transportation costs, Forrest said the cost for special education transportation and transport for students under the McKinney-Vento law increased significantly in 2024. The federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act mandates that school districts provide transportation for children who have become homeless to back to their “school of origin.”

“There is a high number of students we are transporting and out of the district as well as within the district,” Forrest said.

ConVal Business Administrator Robert DiGregorio agreed. 

“The sheer volume of requests we have for specialized education is skyrocketing,” he said.

School Board Chair Dick Dunning of Peterborough said that the district will wait to put out a new request for proposals for transportation services in order to get a more-accurate projection on costs, which fluctuate greatly with fuel prices and other factors. 

Theater project scrapped 

After a brief discussion recapping the recent public forum about proposed renovations to the Career and Technical Education Center, the high school and the Lucy Hurlin Theatre, the board voted to defer the estimated $10 million renovations to the theater. The project will not be brought forward in a warrant article in March and is shelved indefinitely. 

“We heard the public, and we respect what they want,” Dunning said. 

The ConVal School Board will host a public hearing about the budget in January, to be followed by the annual deliberative session in February. For information about the ConVal budget, go to conval.edu.