Schools to Pursue Enrollment Study

In the wake of , the Salem School Board took up how to move forward at their planning meeting Tuesday night.

The board ultimately gave SAU 57 Superintendent Michael Delahanty direction to pursue a request for proposal for a comprehensive enrollment study for the school district.

The idea was first broached by School Board member Bernie Campbell, who had initially brought up enrollments during last year's debate. 

"If program drives facilities, what do we need for program?" Campbell asked. He stated the school district should examine a more detailed analysis of enrollment projects that would go out further than five years. 

Campbell said factors like family size, immigration patters, national demographics and land remaining for development should be considered.

"I think we need to answer those questions," Campbell said. "I think that would be the wisest investment we could make in the short term."

School Board Vice Chairwoman Patricia Corbett asked what kind of cost would be associated with such a project, and Delahanty believed it would be based on complexity.

"Other districts that do this pay upwards of between $10-$15,000 annually or every few years to have a firm study the demographics of the system and the community," Delahanty said, adding one study like the one Campbell suggested could cost as much as $50,000.

"I would rather spend $35-$50,000 to prevent making a multi-million dollar mistake in judgement," School Board Secretary Peter Morgan said.

Earlier in the discussion, the board took up what phase of school renovations should next go before the voters. The consensus indicated the board will again propose to address the elementary schools, but the board's newest member, Michael Carney, Jr., felt differently.

"We are failing our students to the greatest extent at the high school," Carney said. "We do not offer the facilities I've seen around the state. I think our science classrooms are as low as you can possibly go right now."

He said that if they wait until 2015 to renovate the high school, it will be older than Woodbury High School was when the current high school was built.

School Board Chairwoman Pamela Berry said some of the elementary schools are order than the high school is now.

"We're at a critical point where everything needs to be renovated," Berry said. "I don't see one thing as more important than the other. We just need to come up with a recommended plan that we can succinctly do that we can get some support and go with."

"It's important to me that we have equity in those elementary schools," Corbett said. "I think to leave three schools hanging out there is not something we want to do as a community."

"I think we have to finish something at the elementary level," Campbell said.

Campbell also mentioned the possibility of picking one elementary school next year and paying for renovations in cash instead of a large bond project with multiple schools. He stated that was the way Pelham paid for a new fire station.