Support ConVal Elementary Schools

Local elementary schools for vibrant communities

Reasoning

Here are some of the presentations and arguments about Article 10

Vote on March 12th!

Please consider this information when voting on ConVal Warrant Article 10

The ConVal school district is unique in that the original Articles of Agreement (1967) gave a voice to the voters regarding the elementary schools in their towns. Voting to change the Articles of Agreement to take away the voters' voice and leave the future of their towns to a limited number of elected officials has not gone over well in our district. The district as a whole has voted down these efforts in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019.

One thing we have learned over this process is that our communities LOVE their schools - not just families of current students, but retirees, families of former students and even those with no direct connection to the schools. Talk of closing a school without impactful reasoning will always be a tough sell.

We believe the best path forward is voting down ConVal Warrant Article 10 and working towards a solution with a UNITED front from all communities. Using data that has already been collected as well as answering many outstanding questions to build a plan that unites our district is one that is likely to win over voters. This is a topic that many are interested in and should be handled in a way that unites our communities and builds toward the motto CONVAL STRONG.

The current ConVal Warrant Article 10 offers:

NO TAX SAVINGS - The School Board has noted at forums and meetings that any school savings will be reallocated to the administration and possibly middle and high schools.

NO PLAN - Many questions have not been answered about the future of ConVal students and towns. Supposed school choice, but what happens when the school of your family’s choice is full? How large will class sizes be at consolidated schools? How long will our youngest learners be on a bus? Which middle school will the consolidated schools attend? What happens to our sense of community? What happens to your property value?

LOSS OF YOUR VOICE - Voting for ConVal Warrant Article 10 takes away the voices of four towns. Those towns will no longer have a say on if they have a school. A yes vote on this Article puts all the power in the hands of the 13 elected school board representatives. Do you trust all future School Boards to represent your voice? In terms of equity across the district, is it really fair to ask four of our towns to make this sacrifice, especially without a plan?

A NEED FOR MORE RESEARCH - The voter approved 2019 Petition Article 12 required the School Board to submit to the ConVal School District Voters for their approval a comprehensive analysis and implementation plan detailing the financial, educational and social impacts that any school closure might have on both students and towns prior to proposing to the voters any plan for any school closure in the ConVal School District. This Petition Article was recommended unanimously by the School Board, however the current Board failed to meet all the requirements of this article. There has been no implementation plan. No social impact study. No study on the impacts to the towns. More time is needed to complete the analysis and put forth a community supported plan.

It’s clear the ConVal District is in financial trouble. The primary factor for this issue is funding not enrollment, but help is on the way thanks to the tremendous efforts of Superintendent Kimberly Rizzo Saunders. In November 2023, the NH Supreme Court found State funding to be unconstitutionally low. The court ruled for “a $537.6 million increase in state spending per year — a more than 50 percent increase to the $1 billion per year the state currently spends on its K-12 public schools” (NH Bulletin 11/20/23).

Solutions are needed for ConVal, however more work needs to be done to find a solution that will SOLVE the current issue and UNITE our district.

 

Elementary School = Community

We have been part of Temple Elementary School for just over 100 days. In those 100 days we have already established a wonderful feeling of community. When you walk through the doors of TES you don’t just pass by, you are noticed. The children know all the teachers and the teachers know each and every child by name. The community that wraps around them daily is one that should not be overlooked. It’s something to cherish. As a family we have been to many events including their open house, cookie decorating night and I have attended every monthly PTT meeting. I have witnessed first hand the love and care all the staff members have for our children and our community. Our town also gathers at TES for a Holiday Joy event and amazing Thanksgiving Meal at TES. Closing our schools would be a great disservice to the children and the people of our town.

- Malissa Brockney

 

The Joys of a Small Town Elementary School

When we began the search for our forever home we handed out a real estate agent a wish list among the hard wood floors, and a 2 car garage, was a small school. Each of the towns where we toured homes had their own small school. We never thought to look in a town without an elementary school, and we never did. Both my husband and I grew up in small New England towns with community schools. We wanted this same educational experience for our children. We were thrilled when we found our home, the week we closed I went to the school district office to register our oldest as we only had 2 weeks until the school year began.

We attended the Kindergarten orientation where while on the tour my son asked "what happens if you're scared to start at school?"

He was met with reassurance that everyone was there to make his first day of school the best it could be.

Within weeks he was coming home sharing stories of what he learned, his new friends, and his favorite parts of the day which always included outside time and lunch.

When the holidays arrived the main lobby of DCS was decorated like Harry Potter's Great Hall, with Hedwig swooping down from the ceiling, and floating candles lighting the way down the halls. I remember saying to my husband this is the most magical school.

I joined the PTO and have remained an active member for the past 6 years (my youngest is now at DCS), and volunteer whenever I can.

DCS has not only provided my children with a sense of community, belonging and a place where they can express themselves, learn and grow. It has also provided our family with a sense of community, all of our friends we have met because of our community school, this led us to joining other community groups and finding other volunteer opportunities within our town. The connections we made as a new family in town began at DCS, as it has for many others who have come to our beautiful town.

For us it was important that our children feel a part of the town they live in. DCS invites members of our community into the school to help foster this sense of belonging, the fire department, police department and field trips to the library, general store and historical society just to name a few. This would be lost if Consolidation occurs. These walking field trips would be in other towns, the fire fighters and law enforcement would not be those who serve and protect their community but another. The learning of town history would not be their town history. While this is only a very small glimpse into what makes our small schools special, each student deserves to have the opportunity to be educated within their community.

Lisa Budzik

 

ConVal Article 10 represents a very rare voting opportunity.


It’s not often we get a chance to vote on something that could possibly, likely, cause significant, real hardship to thousands of our neighbors.  This is not an exaggeration.

Imagine this:
  • My youngest school children (even kindergarteners) forced to take a long bus ride to a building far from home, not in their home town.
  • Every school activity my young children do, or if they need something, is far from home and requires extra time for travel.  (Like we’re not already stretched too thin.)
  • My home value, my core financial asset, will drop, whether I have kids or not.  I literally lose money.  Not along with everyone else like a recession, just my town, because it suddenly has no public school.  The tax savings with this vote are minor at best, if any at all, and it will not equal the financial hit of losing value in my home.
  • The committees and boards and events of my very active and engaged town will struggle (even more than they currently do) to find participants, because now all the young families will have their time and energy pulled into another town. If they even stay in our town.  And new young families won’t move here to replace them.
  • My little kids, in their formative years, will no longer spend their time in the town I chose, the town I love, because literally they spend more awake hours somewhere else. It’s a significant loss of connection, with long-term impact.
  • We lose decision-making over the largest municipal building in our town.  We don’t have say in who could move in.  And it’s a major loss… this is a beloved location, used frequently for events and gatherings.  
  • And then there are the residents near the schools that are taking in all these new students.  It’s not a handful, or a dozen, it’s around 40 new out-of-town students in each school! The car traffic is going to totally overwhelm the streets (because almost every parent with means will drive their child to a faraway school rather than use the long bus ride).  That will damage the home price values for those neighbors and have significant disruption to their lives.
Any single one of these disruptions and harms should be cause to reconsider a course of action… but this one vote risks dropping ALL of them on us.  

If we were going to do something that carried such high risk of personally harming literally thousands of our district residents, that better be a plan that is blow-your-mind awesome, with certain positive results, and THE LAST RESORT.

But this is NOT the last resort.  And it is NOT well planned.  There are MANY other changes we could make that would support our budget goals without causing so much personal harm.

I appreciate that the school board is focused on the education of our students, and I agree we need a massive change to make the budget work.  But it is wildly irresponsible to ignore the very personal and real harm that is at risk here.  This is not harm to a few outlying individuals, it is a massive disruption to drop on FOUR of our towns, literally thousands of residents.

Vote NO on ConVal Article 10.  Let the School Board hear clearly that we want options, not just one poorly developed risky plan.