Whether Norfolk and Colebrook should consolidate their elementary schools is back under discussion. Previously in this series, we looked at how town leaders and school administrators feel about this subject. This week, we asked parents for their opinions.
Selectmen in both Colebrook and Norfolk point to the social, financial and educational benefits that would derive from combining the two schools, which currently have student populations of 59 (Norfolk) and 64 (Colebrook) in grades pre-k through 6 despite yearly budgets that add up to $2.2 million for Colebrook and $2.6 million for Botelle.
But a school is more than a building, and some stress the loss of a sense of community and question whether a town without its own school can attract families.
Parents contacted this week reflected these thoughts.
Becky Silver, mother of two Botelle students, finds that having so few students curtails enrichment programs. She directs the annual musical presented at Botelle and laments, “We have an issue with not having enough kids to do a show. We may have to open auditions to Colebrook.”
She also noted that sports are really lacking, reporting there have been instances where there were not enough students to field sports teams.
Silver believes the children benefit from small classes, but she thinks things have gone too far. “Last year’s graduating class had only four students, which is not good,” she said. “If we could consolidate and keep class sizes to 12 or 13, we could pool resources and there would be more money for extracurricular events.”
In her minds’ eye, the consolidation would take place in Norfolk, however. While she is only an eight-minute car ride from Botelle, her 5- and 9-year-old ride the bus for 40 minutes, morning and afternoon.
“Unless we were to open a new building halfway between, you’d be looking an hour’s ride to get to Colebrook,” she said.
Chelsea Bottum head of the Botelle PTO, also approaches the issue with mixed feelings, seeing “something to be said” for larger, single-grade classrooms, rather than the multi-age model used at Botelle. But she also sees the benefit of ultra-small classes “where the staff knows every student.”
Ultimately, she endorsed the concept of merger. “I think the fairest way is consolidation with a combined staff,” she said. But she believes that sending students to Colebrook on a tuition basis would decimate the Botelle staff.
Andrew Bakulski of Colebrook, assistant principal at Region #7, is both an educator and parent and states flatly that he favors consolidation—but in Colebrook, not Norfolk. “If we could remove the territorial aspect, the kids would really benefit,” he said.
Paying $25,000 per student tuition would save Norfolk a million dollars a year, he asserted, and would enable Colebrook to provide such things as a full-time language instructor and interventionists to work with students. “It would be really good if done right,” he argued.
In 2015, the last time consolidation was discussed, the largest class would have had 19 students, he reported, not too many for a single teacher. He asserted that that research shows multi-age classrooms are not optimal.
Would Colebrook, the smaller of the two facilities, ever run out of space? “We have the room,” Bakulski said. “There is no [population] bubble coming down the pipe.”
He did not favor regionalization for the two schools, with lower grades attending one school and grades 3-6 the other, saying that it would not result in significant savings.
Regionalization, consolidation or a tuition plan have been discussed for decades by the towns and the need for action continues to grow. But Colebrook, which celebrated the 75th anniversary of its consolidated school Friday, is happy with things the way they are, and Norfolk residents are cautious about the effect of consolidation on their children and their town.