The Saga of Surry Village School

Part-I

 

With no specific item on its June 21st 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 23rd, with parents and students unaware that the school’s life had ended. The Board’s 2nd 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 1st-meeting debate with the Chairperson pushing a decision to close the school. At the 2nd 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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The Saga of Surry Village School

Part-II

Surry elementary children will be on Keene Common tomorrow (August 13) at 10:00 a.m., selling cookies to save Surry School from closing. That deserves a story.

Meanwhile, 200 of Surry’s 750 residents signed a petition “for equitable relief,” submitted to Superior Court July 29th. The resulting court hearing is Monday, August 15th. The background of this story is captured in our earlier Saga of Surry Village School. Feedback we’ve received is posted on the NHCSR weblog.

According to the court filings, “In November 2004, the Monadnock Regional School Board named the MRSD Advisory Committee on the Northern Schools to investigate and advise the Board” about the northern schools “consistent with the timeline below.” And the timeline below states: “August, 2005 – June 2006 Transition Year (if change in current configuration advisable.”

The school district’s 2005-2006 budget was then adopted “which included the cost of the Surry elementary school “transition year.” The court petition continues: “On June 21, 2005, the Monadnock Regional School Board met to consider the Committee’s recommendation to close the Surry elementary school…and that this take effect immediately, without a “transition year.”

Official minutes of this meeting give the impression of real decision-making turmoil. Committee members made motions to close the school and then other people made motions not close the school. Surry’s one school board representative got so frustrated he actually got up and left.

The court petition goes on to notice and describe how the Board’s required meeting notices didn’t take place the right way. The court petition states: “no notice was given to the Board members because the district, although it always sent notices, forgot to send the notice on this occasion.” “No notice was posted in the Surry Town office. The routine for posting in the Surry elementary school was wholly ineffective, because the school had closed for the summer on June 23, 2005, at 11:00 a.m.” According to the court filing, the Monadnock School Board wasn’t following the Right to Know Law or its own policies.

The petition from Surry residents asks the court to invalidate actions of the Monadnock Regional School District and grant relief to the parents and residents of Surry.

Three groups in Surry are taking action on behalf of the Surry Village School. First, a group of citizens representing parents, old-timers, new-comers, selectmen, and everyone else are petitioning for a special town meeting. Their goal is extricating Surry from this large consolidated school district. A second group of parents and residents is petitioning the court to invalidate recent actions of the Monadnock School Board. They hope to keep their school open next year. Two parents advanced the $3,000 needed to have legal assistance. “We had no time for bake sales to raise money,” said Nickki Conroy. “We just had to get the ball rolling to protect the town and our kids.”

And last, but certainly not least, the elementary children of Surry are even having their own rally tomorrow. They have made signs and will sell cookies with proceeds going to support attorneys trying to help them. The children were so busy making signs they wouldn’t even stop to go swimming.

One student wrote to the judge: “I have been going to Surry School since I was 6. I… have big hopes and dreams. Someday I hope to be in a spelling bee. When I was in second grade I knew how to spell metamorphosis. That was because I had one the best teacher, Ms. Leclerc.”

A letter to the editor in today’s Keene Sentinel was forwarded: “To the Sentinel: Imagine having to send your 2 young children on a one and a half to two hour trip to school and back each day, when we have our own fantastic school just a few minutes down the road. Imagine having 3 kids in three different schools, Monadnock, Gilsum and Sullivan and then trying to get them all to a doctor's appointment. We don't have to imagine it, we are living it!” [Note: Monadnock, Gilsum, and Sullivan are all different towns.]

And a member of the Northern Schools Committee wrote and explained the committee’s request for immediate action to close Surry School (also posted on our weblog) “In the just-past academic year, Surry School had 31 students, it will be 25 for this coming school year and is projected to be 24 in 2009.” “…teachers on the committee told us that there are always children at several levels within a single grade. A teacher who has taught single grades, double grades and triple grades told me that students get the best education in a single grade classroom.” She describes a committee process that seemed thorough and thoughtful.

Tom, from Salem, wrote us that Surry school’s closing for reasons on record was questionable. On the harm the committee attributed to children in multiage classrooms spanning 3 grades, Tom wrote “…The Monadnock School Board uses the excuse to close the Surry school that multiage classes provide an inferior education compared to classes consisting of kids of the same age. I cannot find a shred of evidence to support the proposition that classrooms with kids of the same age have anything to do with either superior achievement or with sound pedigical policy.”

Surry might just become the poster child for communities who feel strongly that they, not a multi-town consolidated school board, should have the most to say in decisions about their own town’s children. With increasing frequency, communities want to leave consolidated school district arrangements.

An experienced school board member sent this thoughtful comment: “I would suggest that the Board not close this school until they have had at least one public forum on the matter at which they can outline the research and data they are basing their decision on to the public and the public has the same opportunity to give the board their rational, data, research. I do not know anything about Surry's situation, but without public input and the sharing of information (not emotions) the closing will fester ill feelings for many years and that cannot be helpful to anyone's interest. Just a thought.”

What will happen in Surry? We will follow the results as parents go to court and children make signs and rally on Keene’s common to support their village school.

Stay tuned,
The Editor
www.nhschoolreform.org

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