For friends of Warwick Community School, it was as if the universe contracted just a bit with the announcement by Jeffrey Riley, state commissioner of secondary and elementary education, that the town’s PreK-through-Grade 6 school would close. Its demise was lengthy and hard-fought.
Opened in 1999, the new Warwick Community School replaced a former, outmoded two-room school with a beautiful new building in a natural setting that prided itself on using the out-of-doors as a classroom. On opening day, Aug. 29, 1999, The Recorder reported, “The pristine school seemed to gleam Sunday as townspeople toured its hallways, and children played basketball in the gymnasium made possible through a private fundraising venture.” Townspeople have been justifiably proud of it ever since.
However, over the past half-century, enrollment has declined as the population skews older. Former Selectman Lawrence Carey, who went to school in the original Warwick Center School, recalls two teachers for 70 students back in the 1930s. By 2018, enrollment was 59, some of whom were School Choice students from other towns.
According to a report by the Planning Board in 2016, “Warwick will remain at about its current population of 780 through 2035. The age profile will shift toward older age with predictable impacts. Current problems with low Center School enrollment will continue, and needs to be addressed.”
The writing was on the wall.
In fact, enrollment throughout the four-town Pioneer Valley Regional School district, of which Warwick is a member town, totals an anemic 700 students, a decrease of 40 percent over the past decade. Those are the kinds of numbers that put rural school districts in the crosshairs of state education officials, for whom consolidation and regionalization is a mantra.
To its credit, Warwick came up with innovative ideas to reinvent its school, including a proposed Horace Mann charter school as a cross between a standard district school and a more typical “commonwealth charter school” like the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School in Hampshire County or the Four Rivers Charter Public School in Greenfield. The intent was to create a district-affiliated, independently governed chartered public school with high standards for learning, innovative use of technology and curriculum, and lower per pupil cost. Of course, the potential financial success of the Warwick school as a result of attracting students from other towns would come at a price to the sending districts, which has always clouded the feelings about charter schools locally.
Last fall, after months of discussion, the Pioneer Valley Regional School District School Committee voted 7-to-5 not to move forward in turning the Warwick Community School into a Horace Mann II Conversion School. All that remained was for the state commissioner of education to uphold their January vote to close the Warwick Community School, which Riley did, to no one’s surprise.
In light of the social distancing guidelines engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic, some residents see a new argument for keeping the school open — the extra space afforded would allow students to spread out more. This would be a stop-gap use, however. In the end, it is the demographics of Franklin County that sounded the death knell for small rural schools such as Warwick Community School.
A shuttered school building, like a shuttered church, is heartrending for anyone with fond memories associated with the building. When any institution closes, there is usually a closing ceremony acknowledging the loss. For example, almost one year ago, on Friday, June 14, 2019, the students and staff of Pearl Rhodes Elementary School in Leyden marked their last day of school with a bittersweet celebration that also noted the last day for the school itself. It was a time for good-byes and a final leave-taking of the premises.
Warwick’s students and staff were deprived of this closure by the COVID-19 pandemic. One day it’s open, the next day it’s closed, and finally, it’s closed for good. There needs to be a townwide event with a free barbecue, a speech or two, some awards and some games. A summertime party would offer some semblance of a proper good-bye. The whole town deserves this.