Bridgewater school earns Blue Ribbon Award as federal recognition program ends

BRIDGEWATER — Bridgewater-Hebron Village School will be one of the last recognized as a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education, an honor that traditionally includes a recognition ceremony at the White House. The Trump administration has ordered an end to the program, “in the spirit of returning education to the states,” so instead there will be a event at the Manchester Country Club on Tuesday, Dec. 2.

Principal Tonia Orlando told the Pasquaney School Board it was an extremely prestigious award that also went to Bedford Elementary School and a school in Lebanon. “To think that we are in keeping with some of the best in the state is really remarkable,” she said.

Orlando had another big announcement at the board’s Nov. 19 meeting: U.S. News & World Report ranked the Bridgewater-Hebron Village School as 16th in the state, out of 443 elementary schools.

“So, the combination of those two recognitions are really things to be very, very proud of,” Orlando said.

Then-U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell launched Blue Ribbon Schools program in 1982, to recognize public and private elementary, middle and high schools for overall academic excellence, or their progress in closing achievement gaps. “The National Blue Ribbon School award affirms the hard work of students, educators, families, and communities in creating safe and welcoming schools where students master challenging content,” according to the DOE.

It was Stacy Giles, who served as BHVS principal for the last five years, who nominated the school for the national award while the school was still part of the Newfound Area School District. Giles is now principal of Bristol Elementary School.

Newfound Superintendent Paul Hoiriis shared the letter about the award at the Newfound Area School Board’s Oct. 14 meeting. “The letter acknowledges the hard work and leadership of Stacy Giles, who we are very proud to have as our Bristol Elementary principal,” he said, adding the Granite State's education commissioner invited her to the state ceremony, since the application was submitted under her watch. “She’ll be the one at the school receiving the honor as well,” Hoiriis said.

Orlando said BHVS second grade teacher Kelly MacLean will accompany Giles to the recognition event, saying the honor “is due to the hard work of the teachers and the staff in this building and their absolute diligence and commitment to achieve them.”

Because the Manchester ceremony is by invitation only, Orlando said she is planning a local ceremony to honor the teachers for their roles in earning the award.

“Stacy and I have been communicating well about this, and actually spending dinner a couple of times together. That award was earned through her leadership, and the staff work at that point. She is the person who applied for it. So our hope is to have an event here that you would all be invited to.”

Open enrollment

Pasquaney Superintendent Russ Holden reported on legislative discussions in Concord, where more than 200 proposed bills concern education. He focused on an open enrollment proposal and another on district consolidation.

Open enrollment is something to “keep an eye on,” Holden said, but “I don't think overall it’s a horrible thing.”

Similar bills last year failed, he said, but with open enrollment discussions continuing, school districts are advised to carry at least a $1 line item in their budgets to allow for the changes it would require.

Budgeting is a concern, he said, because of the differing cost per pupil between districts. The language under discussion would require school districts whose students choose to attend classes in a different district to pay 80% of the sending district’s cost per pupil to the receiving school district.

“If we had a student that wanted to go to Prospect Mountain, we would send 80% of our cost per pupil for our high school student to Prospect Mountain for tuition. We would still receive whatever Adequacy and SWEPT [funding] that we would get. A portion of that money would stay raised locally, but 80% of our cost per pupil would then go to Prospect Mountain,” Holden said. “If we were to accept children, again, we would take 80% of the districts that those children are coming from.”

Massachusetts has had open enrollment for a couple of decades, but Holden pointed out education funding in the Bay State is very different from New Hampshire’s approach, which relies heavily on property taxes.

Using the example of Sunapee, where Holden also serves as superintendent, he said the cost per pupil is about $30,000. In the town of Webster, the cost per pupil is $70,000.

“So it’s just a discrepancy of cost per pupil, and how that money is appropriated locally, and then potentially transferred back,” he said.

While there are positive aspect to the freedom to choose a school, it also can be detrimental to many school districts, he said.

“I’ll use Plymouth, as it’s seven little towns, and that school is their identity. And if this thing starts siphoning off children, what’s left in those school districts ... to continue to even function? And somebody might say, ‘Well, why do they have to? Why should they function?’ Well, because there’s always going to be kids in our towns that, unfortunately, parents may not take advantage of that opportunity, or just don’t want to take advantage of the opportunity, and then what becomes of our sort of hometown schools?”

Another legislative proposal would consolidate school administrative units into 12 across the state, administered by elected county superintendents. They would serve for two years, and have oversight of all the schools within that county.

“County superintendents aren’t necessarily something new,” Holden said. “There are states like Indiana, and other states have had county systems, but they’re set up as county systems. We’re not set up as a county system in the state of New Hampshire.”

Consolidation is aimed at lowering costs, but Holden said, “I think schools forever have always looked to bring more together for lower costs, whether that’s through PT classes, CTE centers, in preschools.

"I don’t think consolidation is the way to go, but it has come out of committee. There will be an [legislative service request], if it’s not already written, to look at consolidating all our SAUs into these 12 SAUs.”

Holden said both Maine and Vermont have tried such consolidation. “And there was an article I read yesterday that Vermont is saying, ‘We did this wrong. We can’t do this anymore.’”

School Board Chair Jen Larochelle said she appreciated Holden’s efforts to keep up with what is happening in Concord.

Annual meeting

Holden is preparing a candidate declaration for those running for school board seats at the next school district meeting. Currently, there are three members of the Pasquaney School Board, but voters at the last meeting approved an article to increase the size to five members.

“We’re just putting that form together, because we know that’s coming down the road, and people may want to start signing up for those positions,” Holden said.

The board set the date of the Pasquaney School District’s annual meeting for Tuesday, March 17, the third Tuesday of the month. Two of the three towns that make up the school district — Bridgewater and Groton — hold their annual meetings on the second Tuesday of March; the annual meeting of the Bridgewater-Hebron Village District, which maintains the school, takes place on the second Tuesday of April; and Hebron’s town meeting is on the second Tuesday of May.

In preparation for the meeting, the school board is beginning work on the budget, with a work session scheduled earlier in the day of its Wednesday, Dec. 17 meeting.