The school committee is seen sitting in the front row for the final study presentation, with people in the community in the background. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
SOUTHWICK – The school committee held their meeting in the auditorium of the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional High School on Tuesday night.
NESDEC (New England School Development Council) presented their final study to both the school committee and residents of the Southwick-Tolland-Granville School District.
John Kennedy and Anna Cross, both consultants for NESDEC, reviewed what they found in the study, which was data also presented in previous school committee meetings.
Demographics, enrollment projections, instructional program review, and facilities best-use analysis have been key parts to NESDEC’s study and they put that on display on the power point.
After going through their findings for all four schools in the district, NESDEC then went over the two options again, both of which affect the Granville Village School.
NESDEC consultant John Kennedy presents the final school feasibility study during last night’s school committee meeting. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
Option I is that Granville Village School will close and the building will be for another use. Option II would leave the school as is, keeping it open.
Similar to the public forum that was held in the same auditorium in late November, several people living in Granville and throughout the school district, were not satisfied with the final study done by NESDEC.
Since last night’s meeting was not a public forum, all comments made by individuals were done during one of the two public comments that are offered at all school committee meetings.
“This analysis is just one of the worst reports I’ve seen published,” said Granville resident Ted Sussman. “I would caution against using any of these recommendations,” said Sussman to the school committee.
Steven Cook, another Granville resident who has been very involved with advocating against closing the school, spoke about some of the issues he had with the NESDEC study.
“They’re not looking at trends,” said Cook.
Cook said that he believes the study was using aggregate data. Looking at the enrollment projections by grade, NESDEC listed the birth years of 2011 through 2021 and came up with projections for the number of births from 2016 to 2021.
The projections for the number of births for the future are something that doesn’t make sense to Cook.
“That leads to the believability of the other assumptions,” said Cook.
Pamela Petschke, who is the Granville representative for the school committee, addressed the school committee saying that she has received numerous letters from concerned people about the study.
“I think it’s important we receive these letters carefully,” said Petschke. “I think we can all realize that the NESDEC study was a shallow piece to the puzzle.”
As the study looks at projections going up to 10 years, Petschke reminded the committee how crucial the decision is regarding the Granville Village School.
“We need to look beyond 10 years,” said Petschke.
The school committee held their meeting at the Southwick Regional School auditorium. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
David Ripley, the Chairman of the Granville Select Board, discussed the fact that he believes Granville was supposed to have upgrades to the Granville Village School back when the town agreed to regionalize with the district.
“We were promised some things,” said Ripley. “Now it’s showing up in the (NESDEC) study as a negative.”
Once the second public comment period was finished, school committee Chairperson Jeff Houle let the crowd know he and the rest of the committee are aware of their concerns for the study. There is still time to make progress moving forward.
“We are carefully listening and we are trying to put up as much data as possible,” said Houle. “This study is one piece of the puzzle.”
After the holidays, more presentations regarding the future of the Granville Village School will be taking place. On January 10, Superintendent Jen Willard will present what the education of the district will look like with both Option I and Option II.
January 24 will feature another school committee meeting, just two weeks before the most important meeting on Feb. 7, which will be the vote by the school committee for either Option I or Option II.
