Newport
Public comment was plentiful at a meeting last week to discuss the topic, and on Wednesday night, the board quickly voted, 5-0, to move the fifth and sixth grade to the district’s other two schools and leave Towle, opened in 1925 as a high school, available only for athletics in the school’s Wheeler Gymnasium.
Fifth grade will move to Richards Elementary School to join pre-kindergarten through fourth-grade students, and the sixth grade will move to the Newport Middle High School. The sixth grade will be on an elementary school bus schedule, not a high school one.
As of Oct. 1, there were 65 fifth-grade students and 71 sixth-grade students.
“There is plenty of room at the schools to take each grade,” Business Manager Terry Wiggin said.
After the meeting, which lasted less than 15 minutes, Superintendent Cindy Gallagher said the administration now will look at staffing levels required for both schools and then make decisions on personnel cuts needed to help close a budget gap of more than $1 million under the $17.2 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
“I have to see what our staffing needs are for administration, Title I, special education and regular education,” Gallagher said. “Then I will meet with the union … We are trying to have the least amount of cuts in personnel.”
Under the collective bargaining agreement with teachers, any staff member whose contract is not being renewed must be informed by April 15, though Gallagher said staff will be notified before that date. Last year, the district eliminated 17 positions to help offset an overestimate in tuition revenue.
Wiggin said after the meeting that he estimates moving students from Towle could save about $200,000 a year in fuel, electricity, maintenance, personnel and other costs. The gym is used for high school basketball games because the high school’s gym is not regulation size.
Decisions as to whether the district will consider using the building for other purposes or perhaps look to lease some of the space will be forthcoming, School Board Chairwoman Shannon Howe said.
“We will give the administration direction on the next phases,” Howe said, adding there are no plans to move the SAU offices to the school from their current location behind the high school, a space the SAU recently moved into.
Resident Kurt Minich, the only person to speak at Wednesday’s meeting, where there were about 20 people in attendance, suggested the district sell Towle and use the proceeds to build a new gymnasium at the high school.
Before voters on March 8 rejected a proposed budget of $17.6 million, the School Board and administration in February had said there also will be operational cuts, but that the extent of those cuts would be decided later. One area not being affected is athletics, Gallagher said.
“Athletics is set. The budget is flatlined (meaning there is no increase),” she said. “(Athletic director Jeff Miller) knows what he has to work with.”
At the annual school deliberative session, possible operating cuts included technology, supplies, contracted services and fuel and electricity.
The closing of Towle is the result of declining enrollment, which has become a trend in the district over the last two decades. According to the state Department of Education, average daily membership in Newport schools was about 1,250 in the 2001-02 school year.
As of March 21, it had fallen to 920, a 27 percent drop. Some students come from the neighboring towns of Croydon, Goshen, Lempster and Unity.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
