Voters in the Northeast Kingdom town of Concord have voted to close the town’s small high school, which has 65 students in Grades 9-12.
In a vote of 285-209, residents decided to close the high school portion of the PreK-12 school district Tuesday and tuition the high school students to the school of their choice. Students in Grades K-8 will continue to attend classes in the Concord School building.
There have been more than 10 similar votes on whether to close the high school over the years, all in favor of keeping the high school students in Concord.
A meeting to help parents and students — current eighth graders, as well as the freshmen, sophomores and juniors now attending the high school — has been set for the evening of May 7 at the Concord School, said Brian Rayburn, superintendent for the Essex Caledonia Supervisory Union.
Area high schools — public and independent — will be invited to that meeting to help families figure out what to do next year.
“The town of Concord has been struggling with this question for a number of years,” Rayburn said. “There were a number of factors that brought the petition forward again this year. Taxes and the soaring cost of education weighed heavily on the residents of Concord this year, which resulted in the ‘no’ vote for the school budget. As a result, the town rekindled a common conversation and the result was the vote [Tuesday].”
Rayburn said helping students and families make connections for where they will attend high school next year is the focus now.
Rayburn said that the Concord School Board had a policy — rescinded March 23 after the school budget was defeated — in place since 2011, which allowed students to request to have tuition paid by the town to another high school if the budget were to pass.
“Currently, there are 25 students tuitioned to neighboring schools,” Rayburn said. “It has been a cost driver for the school budget for the past few years.”
The school board met Wednesday, the day after the vote to close the high school, and voted on a budget to go out to voters next week; the budget defeated on Town Meeting Day was for $4,760,302. The budget without the high school is $4,399,646.
“These savings are from a number of sources including reductions to staff and administration,” Rayburn said. “The tax rate, however, does not go down because we lose tuition revenue from students who selected Concord from other towns, such as Lunenburg and Victory. As it stands now, we will lose 5 FTEs in teaching staff and 5 FTEs in support staff,” he said.
