A planned joint meeting of the selectboards of Bernardston, Northfield, Leyden and Warwick, to which the public was invited, had a single topic on its agenda: the fate of Pearl Rhodes Elementary School in Leyden. The meeting, scheduled for March 13, fell victim to a nor’easter. This is unfortunate because circumstances are overtaking the issue in the form of budget deliberations.
The writing has been on the wall.
Pearl Rhodes Elementary School in Leyden has the smallest enrollment of any school in the Pioneer Valley Regional School district. The school, which includes preschool through sixth grade, has 33 students, about two-thirds of whom are from Leyden and the rest from neighboring towns through School Choice. Over the past five years, enrollment has decreased at an average of 2.6 students annually.
Last September, Bernardston Elementary School Principal Bob Clancy took on the added responsibilities for Pearl Rhodes when Principal Deanna Leblanc accepted another job. School district Superintendent Ruth Miller, who herself has announced she is leaving her position in June, publicly noted that discussion of Pearl Rhodes potentially closing led to Leblanc seeking and finding a different job.
Driving this discussion has been the district budget. “The bottom line is, if it’s costing double what it’s costing to go somewhere else, you’ve got to start looking at it,” said Bernardston Selectboard Chairman Stanley Garland. “This is all plain economics and efficiency we’re talking about.”
Except when it’s not.
Some Leyden parents don’t want to see their school close or their children travel somewhere else for school. Pearl Rhodes is about a 13-minute commute from Bernardston Elementary School, but the bus time would vary according to where families live in the far-flung rural community. Additionally, a school is a gathering spot, with playgrounds, meeting rooms and kitchen facilities available to the community. Losing it compromises a town’s cohesiveness, whether Leyden or another of our small county towns.
The regional school agreement, drafted in the 1990s, calls for students to go to school within their respective towns. Critically, the closure of any school must be approved by all four towns at annual town meeting. Thus, districtwide unanimity must be achieved for any school closure.
A critical component of reaching consensus was this March 13 joint selectboard meeting, called to give members of the public an opportunity to share their opinions. “We want to hear what people have to say,” said Garland in announcing the now-canceled meeting.
Since then, events have moved inexorably toward a hollowing out of the school population. The latest budget, which the Pioneer School Committee will vote on Thursday, plans to send Leyden preschool students to Bernardston Elementary rather than Pearl Rhodes school.
This did not go unnoticed.
“When I look at this budget, it doesn’t say it’s a plan to close Pearl Rhodes, but to me it looks like a plan to close Pearl Rhodes,” Patty Solomon, a teacher at Pearl Rhodes, told the School Committee last week. “It’s like the budget is making the decision for us.”
Coincidentally, Mohawk Trail Regional School District is offering free preschool as a way of channeling more students into its elementary schools. By this reasoning, those Leyden preschool students at Bernardston will tend to stay in Bernardston as they advance.
Patty Solomon is right: The budget is driving this bus and it will be voted on by the member towns at annual town meetings in May. If it’s passed in its present form, with Leyden preschoolers going to Bernardston Elementary, the closure of Pearl Rhodes feels like a fait accompli.
This is no way to close a school. The decision shouldn’t be made by budget framers and indirectly through budgeting choices. The School Committee and the towns need to come up with a plan to develop consensus without creating a rift between Leyden and the rest of the district.