According to RSU 12 School Supt. Greg Potter, if the Somerville School wants to avoid being closed, new cost-savings recommendations will have to be adopted before the start of the new school year.
Potter outlined two recommendations during a Wednesday night meeting at the school, and said, “I know how valuable small schools are to communities. I don’t want to see this school have to close.”
After detailing his recommendations, one of which includes eliminating middle school instruction at the Somerville School, Potter asked, “Do I think Somerville School has a very good chance of closing if we don’t do something creative? Yes, I do.”
In addition to sending Somerville 6th, 7th and 8th graders to Windsor, or possibly Palermo as early as September 2011, Potter would like to establish an in-house day treatment center for students with special developmental and behavioral needs.
In support of his middle school proposal, Potter suggested that students will have increased social, academic and athletic opportunities if they move to a larger school, including opportunity for foreign language instruction, access to “state of the art” science facilities, and participation in drama club, sports teams and more.
Former school board member Darlene Landry said, “Our kids just don’t have access to some of these programs. Our students can’t help but benefit from some of these opportunities.”
Only two parents raised questions about the middle school proposal, including whether students would struggle with having to make an extra transition to middle school, rather than proceeding directly from the existing Somerville School to high school.
Potter said he felt students would fair better under the proposed new system, and said that some students have struggled with the transition from such a small school to large high schools like CONY. “Some of them haven’t made it,” he said.
Landry, who grew up in Somerville and graduated from the Somerville School, agreed with Potter and said, “Of the seven [students] I graduated with, four don’t have their high school diplomas.”
Potter’s proposed day treatment program would serve K-6th grade students who have been diagnosed with autism or who have other physical or behavioral needs that cannot be met within the district. These students are currently sent out of the district for services, but Potter’s plan would be to keep them within RSU 12 by serving them at the Somerville School.
Somerville would receive tuition from RSU 12 students in the day treatment program, while simultaneously saving considerable money in transportation costs, as it would no longer have to send its own students out of district.
According to Potter, this proposal would help save hundreds of thousands of dollars, and make the school’s facility viable into the future.
Landry volunteered that the school board would probably be looking at a lot of possibilities and, “It’s not like the school door’s gonna be padlocked on Sept. 1.”
RSU 12 finance committee chair Jerry Nault said, “From the RSU’s perspective, having a facility like this is a blessing. We will exhaust all possibilities. Decisions will not be made lightly. We haven’t ordered the padlocks, they’re nowhere on the horizon.”
