CROYDON — Residents have submitted a petition to the School Board in a long-shot bid to restore nearly $1 million to the town’s 2022-23 school budget, which was slashed to $800,000 in a poorly attended annual School Meeting earlier this month.
The petition, which had 145 signatures, calls on the board to hold a special session and revote on the school budget, but the process comes with a major catch: The vote is only valid if at least 50% of the town’s registered voters turn out for the in-person meeting.
With 565 registered voters on the rolls, 283 Croydon voters would have to show up to restore the budget. Only about 6% of voters turned out for the School Meeting where the budget was slashed.
On Wednesday, at the second of two emergency meetings this week, Superintendent Frank Perotti described the rationale of residents who want spending returned to the $1.7 million level presented to voters by the School Board.
“People are asking for the status quo because the School Board went through the process of establishing a budget,” Perotti said. “The budget the board worked on was a reasonable and very tight budget that met the needs of this community. Twenty people made a decision that wasn’t OK. The budget recommended to the town was a good budget.”
There are literal signs that the drastically reduced budget has generated grassroots opposition. Yard signs have begun popping up around town that read, “We Stand Up for Croydon Students.”
Another sign that will announce the time and date of the special meeting has been placed at the intersection of Route 10 and Croydon Brook Road. (State law also requires the School Board to hold a public hearing at least two weeks prior to the special session.)
Amy Nolen is one of several residents leading the sign effort.
“We got an anonymous donation to kick off the purchase, and then our group here in Croydon has matched it,” Nolen said. “So we have over $1,300 to support the purchase.”
Nolen said the original order of 30 signs went quick, and a second order of 40 was nearly gone as well.
However, it’s unclear if fired-up school supporters will be able rally enough support to restore spending.
At three public meetings to discuss the budget crisis, 75 to 100 people have attended.
In the meantime, the School Board has until April 1 to submit an $800,000 budget that conforms to the School Meeting vote to the state’s Department of Revenue Administration, and residents and board members clashed at meetings on Monday and Wednesday as they discussed how to proceed.
The annual budget pays for the about two dozen students who attend the K-4 Croydon Village School and tuition for about 50 students in grades 5-12 who attend schools in other Upper Valley communities.
There was general agreement this week that if the effort to restore the $1.7 million budget fails, the school district would have to resort to deficit spending, with taxpayers likely to pick up the tab next year.
On Wednesday, School Board chairwoman Jody Underwood suggested it might come down to the school district not paying its bills and then making up the arrears in the following budget year.
Board vice chairman Aaron McKeon said he sees busting the budget is inevitable.
“There will be some deficit spending,” McKeon said. “The question is how much.”
At this week’s meeting, a line-by-line review of spending quickly found that just the services the school district is required by law to provide amounted to roughly $480,000, not counting teacher salaries, and leaves only about $6,100 per student.
About 40% of Croydon students in grades 5-12 attend school in Newport, which charges more than $17,800 per student, and the original school budget proposed to voters called for nearly $1 million to be allocated for tuition alone.
“Philosophical arguments are meaningless tonight,” Perotti said on Wednesday. “There are laws, and we have obligations.”
The three School Board members continued to discuss options for actually implementing an $800,000 budget that included closing Croydon Village Schools in favor of “microschools” with remote teachers, negotiating lower tuition payments to receiving school and trimming expenses.
Many in attendance were dismayed by talk of tuition-free online schools with names such as Prenda and KaiPod that offer remote “guides” to assist students.
Lisa Fellows earned applause when she told the board she wasn’t interested.
“You’re not listening to the parents and what they’re saying,” Fellows said. “This is your agenda, and we don’t want it. You’re not listening to us.”
Underwood responded: “You want the status quo.”
Former school board chair Angi Beaulieu characterized the board’s approach to the emergency meetings as “frustrating.”
“We may not get (what we want) because we can’t get enough people here,” Beaulieu said Wednesday, referring to the 50% threshold for the special meeting vote. “The frustrating part is this entire conversation is about things we told you on Monday we don’t want.”
Another former board member in attendance, Thomas Moore, said current board members would do well to pay heed to residents’ concerns.
“In four years on the board, the most people I saw come out was maybe five,” Moore said. “I’ve never seen Croydon come out like this.”
The School Board is scheduled to hold a regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Darren Marcy can be reached at dmarcy@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.