PHILLIPSTON – Parents and other residents attending Wednesday’s Selectboard meeting were given a handout detailing the fiscal 2021 budget proposal by the Narragansett Regional School Committee. A narrative accompanying the numbers claimed both communities — Phillipston and Templeton — had expressed opposition to significant increases in the district budget, but those in attendance were having none of it.
They were upset the spending plan calls for the closure of Phillipston Memorial Elementary School, which serves students in grades kindergarten through four.
Parent Jim Buzzell, who has a child at Phillipston Memorial Elementary School, acted as spokesman for the group.
“The first sentence that ‘the towns have spoken, and both agree they will not support increases to the school budget’ is patently false,” he said. “We know that. Phillipston has voted on all overrides to increase the budget, without fail. It’s not true that both agree.
“Then it goes to say ‘this would benefit us and allow for the much-needed addition of key social/emotional staff.’ So, we’re going to hire more staff while we fire teachers.”
Buzzell disputed the School Committee’s contention that the proposed moves would “foster a positive classroom environment.”
“Thirty students per classroom is fostering a positive classroom environment?” he asked rhetorically. “Students in Phillipston right now are in classrooms of between, I believe, 17 and 21. Twenty-two might be the highest number; and they’re going to go up to 30 kids in a classroom. That is not a positive classroom environment change for our students in this town.”
He also took issue with plans to reassign fifth-grade students to Narragansett Regional Middle School. Buzzell said the young students were moved into the middle school last year, then transferred again this year to the new Templeton Elementary School.
“It doesn’t seem like the School Committee and the superintendent really have a plan,” said Buzzell. “They’re just jumping from solution to solution — that aren’t really solutions.”
Buzzell went on to state that the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) is threatening to withhold a $1.6 million payment toward the construction of the new elementary school because the district, in order secure state funding for the $47 million facility, had assured the state that Phillipston Memorial Elementary School would remain open.
“The MSBA has now said that them now trying to move the students all around again and reconfiguring the district is, quote, ‘problematic to grant funding,’” said Buzzell. “If they withhold the funding, who is that bill going to go to? Us? Because our kids are going to be in that school now?”
In an initial response to the parents’ concerns, the Selectboard voted to send a letter to the regional school committee asking how much it would cost for the town to operate Phillipston Memorial Elementary School on its own.
In addition to finding funds to operate the school, both towns — Phillipston and Templeton — would have to agree to re-open the district agreement, and both would have to consent to Phillipston operating the school independently. The town would continue, if the plan comes to fruition, to pay for Phillipston students in grades five through 12 to attend the regional middle and high schools.
The town of Petersham has a similar arrangement with the Mahar Regional School District.
