The Saga of Surry Village School

Part I: The Surprise Vote

With no specific item on its June 21^st agenda, the Monadnock School Board voted to close Surry Village School. Then, Board minutes reflect squabbling and disagreement, followed by a vote to undo the decision and a new decision to meet again.

The 35 children in grades 1-6 left for the year at 11:30 a.m., June 23^rd, with parents and students unaware that the school’s life had ended. The Board’s 2^nd meeting notice was faxed out at 1:20 p.m., June 23rd. This second meeting notice doesn’t mention closing Surry School, though: it says “Discuss the Recommendation of the Northern Schools Committee.”

People in Surry didn’t know what hit them—because in October 2004 the same Board apparently made clear that no northern school would close without a transition year. The Northern Schools Committee charge specifically includes a year transition for any recommendation. And the school budget just presented and voted by all the Monadnock taxpaying communities included the regular funding for the Surry School. If there was another agenda brewing about use of Surry's three-room schoolhouse, taxpayers weren’t in the know. And why were taxpayers asked to fund Surry School for 2005-2006 and then the course of action abruptly changed in late June with no specific reason?

Board meeting minutes reflect an uncomfortable 1^st-meeting debate with the Chairperson pushing a decision to close the school. At the 2^nd meeting, another debate ensued but the vote to close prevailed. The meeting agenda doesn’t mention a vote of this importance taking place, so most Surry people were not notified. We’re told the Surry representative on the Board was not even present. Under the cooperative agreement of 1961, Surry has only one vote on this large multi-town Board.

Board minutes at both meetings capture all the questions asked and answered. Attendees were told that the Board wasn’t really closing the school, they were just not allowing Surry children to go to school there any more. The Board has other ideas for the school—like a school for students from other district towns or maybe storage or a charter school.

This interesting story captures the downside of cooperative school districts made up of multiple small towns, problems predicted for the multitown model in a 1945 Harvard Committee treatise on school consolidation. The school boards are big, the interests of the larger districts have the most votes, and small participating towns cannot protect their own children and village schools. Small town representation becomes insignificant in large cooperative school districts in the overall scheme of things.

Historically, Surry School’s life begins in 1945. Small New England towns had trouble finding school teachers during and after World War II. Pay was poor, living arrangements were difficult to find, and adults who might teach were taking manufacturing jobs. Towns like Surry, New Hampshire, population 750, had one or more small village schools with arrangements for high school students to attend at the nearest community. Surry students attended high school in City of Keene, just a few miles away where tuition was $120/year (and the Superintendent earned $222/year).

In Surry’s 1945 Town Report, the school Superintendent writes: “Last year three recommendations were suggested for meeting the teacher shortage in the town. The most practical being the construction of a central two-teacher school to accommodate all the pupils of the town. Such a building would be a decided asset; besides providing for the best educational interest of scholars, it would promote civic interest and pride and could provide a community center for use outside school hours. It would certain do much to attract new housing and settlement in the town.”

The record shows that people in Surry liked this idea and put aside money every year to build the “new Surry School” that would be the pride and centerpiece of their town. The school was built in 1950 and has operated as the town's elementary school (grades 1-6) ever since. A village newsletter, “Surry Speaks,” emerged in 1952 and almost every edition talks about the “Parents Club,” holding auctions and rummage sales to support Surry Village School programs.

From 1950 to today, the numbers of Surry children has remained consistently small—from 5-12 students per grade. Now as then, students are taught in multiage classrooms, common for small-town schools, where teachers have students from several grades and the classes have to build a sense of community among and between children. State standards allow multiage classrooms.

By 1960, many communities are growing and New Hampshire’s high schools are becoming overcrowded. Most communities are too small to have their own academies and the legislature passes the Cooperative School District statute, allowing multiple towns to band together as ‘one’ school district. Under the cooperative school district model, all the towns participating pool their schools, their children, and their resources.

Six or seven small towns south of Keene begin forming the Monadnock Cooperative School District. A state-of-the-art new high school is planned and districts buying in to this concept will share the cost and benefit. Surry and another town north of Keene do not join in at first, hopeful they might stay with Keene. Then, sensing no other option, Surry asks to participate and is given a commitment timeline. With the new high school cost-sharing plan almost finalized, Surry residents must quickly vote if they want in. And so, following a promptly-held town meeting, Surry votes within the deadline to join the new cooperative district. The Commissioner of Education issues a notice of reorganization approval October 1961, the new cooperative district comes to life, and the new high school is built.

Only if you know people in Surry can you appreciate how much the village school is cherished by residents. A town historian opines that 100% of Surry residents want their village school to continue. Did the Superintendent’s recent resignation give Board members with other ideas for Surry’s school an opening to close the school during the transition time? So think some residents.

Residents, most of whom barely had notice of what was happening, asked why their school was being closed. After all, the board had voted a year transition time should the school be closed, and all the voters of all cooperative communities had just passed a budget approving funding for Surry school.

Board minutes reflect that Board members were not concerned about money but felt sending Surry children out of town for school –grades 1-3 in one direction and grades 4-6 in another direction--was better for the education and socialization of the Surry children. The current Board doesn’t support multi-age classes even though people move to Surry and buy houses there knowing that this is the town's school program.

And that is the current Saga of the Surry School. Will the Board really consider a charter school? Is the Surry Village School really going to close in this manner that seems to leave out Surry residents? Stay tuned.

Susan Hollins

July 29, 2005

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