Like other small Vermont schools, Strafford’s Newton School had to undertake serious self-reflection after the state Legislature passed Act 46 in 2015.
In a proposal to obtain an exemption from merging with other area schools, district officials emphasized students’ high test scores, the school’s robust enrichment programs and residents’ desire to preserve their community school, along with a lack of viable partnering schools. The State Board of Education conceded, allowing the Newton School, a K-8 school with enrollment that hovers around 100 students, to remain independent.
Just a few months after the state board made its final decision, the school once again finds itself examining its identity and ability to serve the community.
In December, after concerns about the middle school surfaced at Strafford School Board meetings, the board hired an independent consultant to investigate the matter through interviews with parents, teachers and students and classroom observations.
“People will talk about all sorts of different things. I want some data,” Greg Bagnato, who has served as principal of the school for six years, said in a phone interview earlier this month.
The consultant, who was hired for about $13,000, conducted about 70 in-person interviews last month, along with additional telephone interviews. The school also posted an online survey for community members.
The consultant, Dawn Ellis of Dawn Ellis & Associates in Burlington, will present her findings to the school board in March or April, Bagnato said. At Tuesday night’s School Board meeting, which was rescheduled from Feb. 12 because of weather, the board will discuss how to proceed once the findings are made available. The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at the Sharon Elementary School.
Bagnato said he hopes the consultant will be able to offer answers that have proved elusive over the past few months, as parents have come forward at School Board meetings and through other channels to air complaints about the middle school experience.
“Mostly we’d hear from certain parents that they were not satisfied, but there isn’t a specific trend,” Bagnato said. “I don’t want to speculate.”
But some parents wonder whether the consultant will successfully get to the bottom of what they say is a complicated issue.
“I think the consultant is a very expensive band-aid and ointment on a many years old wound that needed to be opened up long ago, looked into, and probably surgically redone,” Meg Albee, a Newton School parent whose daughter recently transferred to The Sharon Academy, wrote in an email last week.
Albee grew up in Strafford and attended the Newton School, an experience she remembers fondly. Along with being a parent, she’s a frequent substitute teacher and has directed the school’s drama program for the past three years. Her complex ties to the school are typical of this town of about 1,000 people.
“Our town is very small and valuably connected. Many of our teachers and the principal live here — this makes speaking out difficult for people,” Albee wrote. “There is division and misunderstanding surfacing left and right amongst parents and other members of the town.”
Albee said she pulled her own daughter out of the school for a better academic and social experience than she was receiving at Newton, even though that means paying tuition to the private middle and high school in Sharon. Part of her concern over the school culture was declining enrollment at the middle school, she said.
Bagnato said it’s difficult to get an accurate sense of enrollment trends because families move in and out of town. Two students have left the middle school to attend The Sharon Academy this year, he said. Like schools around the state, the Newton School is also dealing with an overall decrease in the school-age population, a factor that precipitated the Act 46 legislation.
But community members who have spoken up at School Board meetings say issues at the Newton School go beyond the problems afflicting schools more broadly: These include the overall school culture, a lack of adequate support for social/emotional development and a stagnant curriculum, in addition to concerns about the size of the school.
At one meeting, several community members proposed eliminating the middle school and devoting more resources to the pre-k program. Although it’s unclear whether the State Board of Education will revisit merger decisions in coming years, such a move could put the district at risk of a forced merger, School Board Chair Erik Goodling told the Herald of Randolph last month.
It’s also unclear where the town’s middle schoolers might end up. Thetford Academy, a 7-12 school with about 300 students, is Strafford’s designated high school, but students also receive waivers to attend Hanover High and other schools.
In spite of the uncertainties, some community members believe radical change may be called for.
“Strafford has been well-known for having an excellent pre-k through 8 for decades; we have historically had some exceptionally brilliant and loving teachers, especially in the middle school level,” Albee wrote. “I think Newton got lazy in that reputation, and no good thing lasts if you sit on your laurels and do not grow it and change it and always ask questions and continue to adapt to a changing culture.”
While the consultant was hired specifically to analyze the 7th and 8th grade experience at Newton, the issues may extend beyond the middle school. At the January School Board meeting, a parent requested that the survey be open to the entire school, as she does not believe the problems at Newton are exclusive to the upper grades.
Kate Frederick, another parent who has attended recent School Board meetings, said families with younger children have also been having difficulties at the school. After moving into the district last May, Frederick said she ran into multiple problems while attempting to construct a part-time homeschool experience for her son, Devon, who is in the first grade. She said she had a hard time getting a meeting with school staff to go over her proposed home-schooling schedule, and that when she did get a meeting, she met with resistance over her desire to send Devon to an alternative school one day a week.
Frederick said Bagnato refused to sign paperwork that she needed to submit to the state for approval. Additionally, she said her son came home with a note barring him from being in a puppet show after he missed a rehearsal due to home-schooling, even though the director of the production had approved the absence (he was ultimately allowed to participate). Finally, when a teacher indicated that Devon was falling behind in math because of his homeschooling arrangement, Frederick said she pulled him out of school altogether.
Bagnato said Frederick’s experiences revolve around interpretation of state homeschooling laws and school truancy policies. While families who home-school are allowed by law to participate in a variety of activities at the public school, he said, part-time home-schoolers are required to attend all classes in which they are enrolled at the public school. Because Devon’s home-school schedule would necessitate missing some of the classes in which he was enrolled at Newton, Bagnato said he could not sign Frederick’s paperwork.
The school has always tried to be flexible regarding home-schooling, Bagnato said, but parents who enroll their children in alternative programs sometimes run into scheduling problems.
Bagnato also said Frederick’s complaints are an isolated issue and not connected to problems in the middle school.
The annual school district meeting, scheduled for next Tuesday, may further reveal the root and scope of the problems. Although the warning for the meeting does not mention the consultant work, some community members expect the topic to come up.
Albee believes some uncomfortable discussions may be necessary. “There are some really wonderful kids in Stafford, and many parents who work their tails off to support this community and its school,” she wrote. “But they are having to shout to be heard that they are not getting what they deserve in a town with very high taxes and a school budget that never gets denied.”
The proposed school budget for 2019-2020 is $3.17 million, or about $16,600 per pupil, a 6.8-percent increase over last year.
Sarah Earle can be reached at searle@vnews.com and 603-727-3268.