Schools
Closing A School Back On The Table
The school board's reconfiguration committee presented options for closing an elementary school by fall 2011.
Troubled by the Board of Finance's recent remarks that a 1 to 3 percent budget increase will be the "new normal" in the near future, the Board of Education's reconfiguration committee is exploring the cost savings it would reap if it closed one of the town's six elementary schools by fall 2011.
Concerned the "organic growth of the school budget," as board member Russell Katz put it, would exceed that 3-percent mark going forward, the committee—which also includes John Palermo, Amy Shinohara and Irene Burgess—presented a few preliminary reconfiguration options to close a school before the previously targeted 2013-14 date.
These options, which assume closing one of the smaller elementary schools, included making the Barlow Mountain-Scotland complex into K-2 and 3-5 schools or moving some fifth graders into a portion of East Ridge Middle School.
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But parent commenters—many of whom spoke against closing a school in the conversation's earlier incarnations—called the proposals "crazy" and "ridiculous."
Fifth graders should not be mixed in with eighth graders or miss out on their last year of elementary school community, multiple speakers told the board. And board members should not be putting financial concerns ahead of educational philosophies, they said.
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"Many issues are going to be discussed during this process," Shinohara emphasized, trying to stave off parent panic, "many of which are not going to happen." The committee proposed, and the full board agreed, to hire a Montana-based consulting firm to analyze projected enrollment declines and potential reconfiguration scenarios to help gauge the feasibility of an accelerated time line for closing a school.
The consulting work will cost about $35,000, split between this and next year's budgets, Superintendent Deborah Low said.
The schools budget for this coming fiscal year was passed with a 1.35 percent increase. But that figure—low despite adding full-day kindergarten—stemmed from one-time savings, including a negotiated low salary increase on teacher contracts, the new tiered busing system and the launch of switching school employees to a Health Savings Account benefits plan.
