Cornish
At a meeting Monday night, the board continued an earlier discussion about tuition agreements with area high schools but was unable to pin down exactly when the current decision on how much the district would pay for each student was made, how it was made and who approved it.
Cornish, which has a K-8 school, ended an agreement about 25 years ago with the Claremont School District to send all of its students to Stevens High School. After that, according to some at the meeting, the district allowed parents to send their children to any high school they chose and Cornish would pay up to the tuition rate of Stevens.
Resident Sue Chandler, who has served on the School Board, said Hanover High School was more expensive but her recollection is that parents of students going to Hanover “did not want to burden the town with excess taxes” so they agreed to pay the difference between the tuition rates of Stevens and Hanover.
“We always knew if someone wanted to challenge it they probably could and win,” Chandler said.
Another resident, Caroline Storrs, who taught at the Cornish school, sent her children to Hanover as well.
“We knew we were going to pay above the Stevens rate,” Storrs said.
In his research, SAU 6 Business Manager Mike O’Neill told the School Board that records are sparse but he found reference in the 2003 annual school district meeting that Cornish would pay the highest of the rates charged by Stevens, Windsor or Hartford high schools. Any amount above that figure would be the parents’ responsibility and that has only applied to Hanover, because its tuition has traditionally been the only one more than Stevens.
Board member Nicole Saginor said at the meeting she was not sure if the agreement to have parents pay some of the Hanover tuition was the result of a formal vote.
Stevens had always been the highest among those three high schools until last year, when the Claremont School Board voted to decrease Stevens tuition from more than $18,000 per student to $14,500.
O’Neill said Tuesday that the issue surfaced when he was asked by Hanover how much Cornish would pay toward the Hanover tuition for one of the Cornish students. He has been trying to determine what rate the district has to pay.
Also at Monday’s meeting, a resident presented a copy of the tuition article of state law, which he said clearly states the sending district is responsible for 100 percent of tuition in all cases.
Diana Fenton, an attorney with the state Department of Education, said on Tuesday she would need time to research the law before commenting.
State law does allow districts to approve “schools of record,” which is what happened recently in Newport area schools. Residents in Goshen, N.H., and Croydon both voted to name Newport as its school of record. According to Newport Superintendent Cindy Gallagher that means those towns only have to pay the Newport tuition rate. If a student goes to another school with a higher tuition, such as Lebanon, the parents or guardian must pay the difference.
With sketchy records, the board said, the best thing to do going forward is to meet with counsel and write and develop a new policy.
“We need to have a clear policy so we have something to reference,” board Vice Chairman Greg Clark said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
