(This story is by Matt Hongoltz-Hetling of the Valley News, in which it first appeared Aug. 23, 2017.)
[C]HELSEA — School officials in Chelsea and Tunbridge in the past week have agreed to talk about a merger again.
The latest proposal makes a new concession to local control, which school board members hope will help it pass muster with voters in the two towns in October.
In a key change, the school board that governs the proposed merged district would not have the power to close Chelsea Public School or Tunbridge Central School.
Instead, “Tunbridge voters would have to vote to close any Tunbridge school, and Chelsea to close any Chelsea school,” Kathy Galluzzo, chairwoman of the Tunbridge School Board, said during a phone interview Tuesday.
That’s a departure from the previous plan, which would have allowed a joint board made up of Chelsea and Tunbridge representatives to close any school within the proposed district after five years.
In all versions of the plan being considered, the two school districts would merge into a single entity under a joint budget, and would teach students from pre-kindergarten to grade eight.
High school students would have school choice, which would mean Chelsea High School would close, possibly to be repurposed as a middle school to serve students from both towns. But Galluzzo said that, until school officials go through a more extensive process to rule out other options, it’s also possible that middle school students could be taught in Tunbridge, or in both communities.
The original plan, which would have granted a joint board the power to close a school, received voter approval in both towns in April. But Tunbridge residents had second thoughts and successfully petitioned for a revote that, in June, scuttled the plan by a narrow 164-160 margin.
Galluzzo believes the change will be enough to overcome the objections she heard from the public during a series of school board-sponsored “listening sessions.”
Joe Spinella, chairman of the Chelsea School Board, said it was highly unlikely that the merged school board would have taken advantage of the opportunity to close any school in Chelsea, which had 132 students last year, or Tunbridge, which had 194 students last year, according to state enrollment figures.
“There’s no indication by the data that the population would decrease such that there would be any interest in closing any school,” Spinella said.
He said the change was being main to “assuage the fears of a certain group of people.”
The formal articles of agreement have not yet been drafted, but on Thursday the Tunbridge School Board voted unanimously to enter into a new joint study committee with Chelsea.
After Tunbridge rejected the merger in June, some Chelsea residents lobbied for a potential merger with Waits River Valley School District, but Monday night the Chelsea School Board voted to enter into the committee in what Galluzzo said was a 3-2 vote.
“One thing all eight board members agree upon is that a merged district is the best educational possibility we have for our kids,” Galluzzo said.
The plan is one of four potential mergers within the White River Valley Supervisory Union under pressure from Act 46, the 2015 education reform law that holds schools to strict new standards of accountability, equitability and affordability.
Under the law, districts that don’t present voter-approved plans to the state by Nov. 30 are subject to a review by the State Board of Education, which is charged with imposing whatever governing structure and merger plan it feels is most consistent with the goals of Act 46.
Schools districts that do merge before that deadline get a temporary break on their taxes and maintain state grants. Those grants total about $135,000 for Chelsea and $100,000 for Tunbridge.
Galluzzo said the goal is to present newly drafted articles of agreement to the State Board of Education by early October. Voters in both towns would likely be presented with the proposal in mid-November.
