WHITINGHAM- The Whitingham School Board met in a special meeting Thursday evening to discuss school options they may pursue if voters decide to dissolve the Twin Valley School District.

A referendum on the joint school district is scheduled for May 27.

According to preliminary figures presented by board member Cheree Dix at the meeting, Whitingham’s school budget could be only slightly higher after the first year, or even level-funded, if the town decides to operate a K-8 school and tuition their high school students. Although Whitingham would face a substantial tax penalty for severance pay during the first year, the following year, taxpayers might see only a slight increase.

Dix’s figures showed education spending of $2,964,411 (without severance pay) to replicate the current elementary and middle school program, resulting in a tax rate of $2.13. The current tax rate is $1.97, and Dix said that the school board would need to shave about $86,595 of the school program to stay out of the Act 68 penalty box and achieve a tax rate of about $2.

With the estimated $221,428 in severance pay, the first year’s tax rate could be as high as $2.44.

Dix suggested several middle school programs the board could consider for reductions, including the school library, technology, art, physical education, foreign language, and other areas. Although the cuts would mean a reduction from the current middle school program, she said the programs wouldn’t have to be eliminated. “Kids would still have art, kids would still have PE,” she said. “We’d still have a technology program. We just need to downsize programs.”

But Dix said industrial arts and family and consumer science were “potentially not necessary.”

Board member Jack Kincella said he was concerned about the numbers in Dix’s budget model. “The transportation numbers are based on high school kids going to Mohawk (Mohawk Trail Regional School),” he said. “There’s no other (high school) transportation listed except to try to do a coalition program with other schools. I think some of the numbers are too low.”

One of the numbers Kincella said he was concerned about was tuition, which Dix figured at $12,000 per high school student. But Dix said she chose $12,000 as “the more expensive school that’s around.”

Kincella said he was concerned about cutting programs to the point that Whitingham’s students wouldn’t be prepared to succeed in high school.

“If we cut too much, we’ll be accused of not having a program that compares with what we have,” summed up board member Ed Metcalfe. “If we cut too little, we’ll be looking at something that costs a lot more. We have to go down the middle.”

Board member Dwight Williams opened up the discussion to members of the public in attendance at the meeting, asking petitioners if they intended to have a level-funded program, or one that might be slightly more expensive.

Whitingham parent Marshall Dix said his concern, and that of other parents of young children, was the discussion of a plan to combine Whitingham and Wilmington’s elementary schools. “I have a daughter that will be going to the elementary school and I don’t like the idea of sending her to Wilmington,” he said. “That’s why I would sign that petition.”

But Dix and other meeting attendees also indicated that they were concerned about the governance of Twin Valley School District.

Under the governance structure, representation on the board is governed by population – Whitingham, with a smaller population than Wilmington, has a minority of seats on the joint school board. “If we stay together, we’re going to lose a lot of say in what happens to this school, because we’ll always have fewer kids.”

Kincella objected that the discussion regarding the elementary school wasn’t part of the Twin Valley contract or any formal proposal. “There was just a nonbinding resolution to look at (combining elementary schools) as an option,” he said. “We haven’t had any informational meetings or discussions other than putting together a process to look at it.”

Metcalfe said it was suggested that both towns could save money, and pay for upgrades at the school buildings in both of the towns – an option he said was worthy of consideration.

“It could end up saving a lot of money,” he said. It’s still open to discussion whether Whitingham would want to do this.”

Metcalfe suggested the board meet with elementary school parents to see how they feel about the idea. “If enough of them think it’s a lousy idea, I think Whitingham’s members on the Twin Valley School Board would say we have to look at something else.”

But Whitingham resident Sherry Adams said concerns regarding the elementary school were relevant to the Twin Valley district. She said those who were concerned about Whitingham elementary students going to school in Wilmington were “thinking ‘what can we do to make sure that doesn’t happen?’ People want better education for their kids. Some think that’s having the high school come down here, and some people think it’s keeping the elementary students here. But people saw that the only way they could do anything was to have a vote to go back to basics.”

Adams asked why the high school building in Wilmington hadn’t been renovated, as a straw vote in November suggested a majority in the two towns preferred. Metcalfe said he didn’t think the idea received much support in Whitingham. But Marshall Dix suggested it hadn’t been repaired because Wilmington wanted “Whitingham to buy them a new one,” a suggestion that brought murmurs of agreement from the crowd.

Whitingham resident Amber Newton said one of her chief concerns was the IMP math program at Twin Valley. “I don’t want the IMP, I don’t like the IMP, and I have issues with the language-based math we have at the elementary level,” she said.

Kincella said the math program had been changed over the last year and a half because of similar concerns.

But some parents were concerned about the impact of school choice on themselves and their children. Whitingham parent Shirley Felisko said her employment would be put in jeopardy if she had to miss work to provide transportation for her kids. “I talked to my boss, and we could potentially lose six employees if they had to bring their kids to their school of choice,” she said. “I absolutely couldn’t do that. I need my job, and if I don’t have my job, I won’t be able to pay taxes here and nobody’s going to win.”

“As a parent of one in the middle school and two in the elementary school, I would have to say I would prefer bringing them to Wilmington, six miles away, than traveling 30 miles away,” said parent Aimee Reed.