"We're in an unstable position in public education in this state," said SAU 6 Superintendent Middleton McGoodwin in response to a question about pending New Hampshire legislation on school choice vouchers and school funding from Cornish resident Kate Freeland during the school meeting at Cornish Elementary School in Cornish, N.H., Saturday, March 11, 2017. Cornish Elementary Principal Jennifer Prileson is at left and school board member Cathy Parks is at right. Moderator Gwyn Gallagher stands at his lecturn and clerk Merilynn Bourne is at top right. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
"We're in an unstable position in public education in this state," said SAU 6 Superintendent Middleton McGoodwin in response to a question about pending New Hampshire legislation on school choice vouchers and school funding from Cornish resident Kate Freeland during the school meeting at Cornish Elementary School in Cornish, N.H., Saturday, March 11, 2017. Cornish Elementary Principal Jennifer Prileson is at left and school board member Cathy Parks is at right. Moderator Gwyn Gallagher stands at his lecturn and clerk Merilynn Bourne is at top right. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Credit: Valley News photographs — James M. Patterson

Cornish — In a perfect world for Cathy Parks, Cornish’s school system would stay under the umbrella of School Administrative Unit 6 with neighboring Claremont and Unity.

Yet, on the way out of the Cornish Elementary School gym for the last time — for now — as a member of the town’s School Board on Saturday afternoon, Parks declared the town’s 140 schoolchildren, including her son in kindergarten, as safe from the storms buffeting public education as she could hope, now that the school is preparing to go it alone.

“(School Board incumbents) Greg (Clark Jr.) and (Chairman) Justin (Ranney) especially, I think, are serving the school well,” Parks, who did not seek re-election, said after the school district’s annual meeting. “I think Alexys (Wilbur, who ran unopposed for Parks’ seat), who also has a child in kindergarten here, will act in the best interests of the school. … And (first-year Principal) Jen Prileson is exactly what this school needed, the change that this school needed.”

Some 120 of Parks’ fellow residents appeared to agree on Saturday, approving, with no debate and few questions, a 2017-2018 school budget of nearly $3.7 million that covers instruction of about 80 pupils at the pre-K through grade 8 elementary school and $950,000 in tuition for about 60 Cornish children attending high schools in surrounding towns.

That total also includes the last-minute addition of $75,000, by amendment from the floor, to the bottom line of the special-education budget, covering the tuition of a high school-age student attending a private high school. Ranney said the school district learned of the required spending after the board had assembled the overall budget proposal, and added that the board might need to dip into a special-education contingency fund of about $58,000 to cover the full cost.

“It’s a fluid situation,” Ranney said, without detailing where the student will be going or for what specific services. “It could be north of that” $75,000 estimate.

Before the addition of the special-education money, school officials expected the education portion of Cornish’s tax rate to rise about 45 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, or $112 on a $250,000 home.

This year’s annual meeting comes a year after voters spent much of a seven-hour session discussing whether to go it alone as a one-school SAU, and two years after a contentious School Board election that revolved around proposed cuts to the school budget and ended with the ouster of the incumbent chairman.

“I came on the board during a turbulent time,” Parks said. “I opposed leaving SAU 6, but I still am encouraged at the general direction we’re going. I hope my son will go all the way through this school to grade eight. I like the idea of a small school. … It’s a good town for a child to grow up in.”

In addition to the operating budget, voters in the floor session on Saturday agreed without debate to spend $35,000, on top of the $25,000 they’d appropriated for the work at the 2016 district meeting, to complete improvements to and relocation of the school’s emergency generator.

In voting throughout the day, townspeople conferred 103 votes on Wilbur for a three-year term on the School Board. And incumbent Melissa Drye, who was appointed in 2016 to fill a vacancy, received 116 votes running unopposed for a fresh stint of three years. Also unopposed for re-election to one-year terms, school district clerk Merilynn Bourne received 113 votes, moderator Gwyn Gallagher 126 and treasurer Larry Dingee 108.  

Along with agreeing to raise almost $3.7 million for education, Cornish residents on Saturday bought more than $300 worth of purple T-shirts, sweatpants and hooded sweatshirts labeled Barber Strong. The money will go to the family of 17-year-old Julie Barber, the Cornish Elementary graduate and Lebanon High School student who is recovering from a form of spinal cancer that left her without control of her lower body.

Volunteer Rachel Roper said Barber Strong boosters sold about $2,500 worth of Barber-wear during two recent basketball playoff games at Windsor High School. And according to the GoFundMe page that Lebanon High graduate Meg Tenney started last November, supporters have donated nearly $52,000 toward a goal of $55,000 for Barber.

David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.