By Avice Meehan

Jonathan Costa had one piece of advice for Norfolk as a whole, and specifically for members of the Board of Education and the Board of Selectmen: speed is not your friend. 

Costa acted as a facilitator in the unsuccessful 2015 effort to bring Botelle Elementary School and the Colebrook Consolidated School into a single school district. Now the executive director of EdAdvance, a regional education service center, he attended the Jan. 7 Board of Education to help members better understand options for the future. The board was joined by Selectmen Sandy Evans and Henry Tirrell. First Selectman Matt Riiska was unable to attend.

The timing was significant in the wake of a tumultuous November gathering in Colebrook that blindsided members of the Board of Education and even took two of Norfolk’s selectmen by surprise. That meeting, which included the boards of selectmen from both towns, was packed with Colebrook residents and other elected officials. One member of Norfolk’s board was informed of the meeting but did not attend.

“Speed is your enemy, not your friend,” Costa said, adding that the two towns are “better together” for both financial and educational reasons but that it would take time, thought and patience to craft a workable solution founded on trust. 

Costa’s advice seems to have had an impact. 

Riiska, who has been vocal about restarting conversations between Colebrook and Norfolk, had originally pushed for a town-wide meeting before the end of January. Indeed, at his request, Tirrell shared two proposed dates in late January. They have come and gone.

The following day, Jan. 8, Virginia Coleman-Prisco, chair of the Board of Education, and several colleagues attended the Jan.8 selectmen’s meeting. They suggested that Costa serve as moderator for any town meeting and that there be agreement on both an agenda and goals. (See Board of Education , page XX.)

Riiska still wants to convene a town-wide meeting that includes Colebrook but said via email that he is aiming for mid-February. “We are working on a group that will discuss the collaboration of the schools in the next couple of weeks,” he wrote.

Said Coleman-Prisco, “No one is opposed to exploring what everyone’s feelings are.” She said she has begun reaching out to board colleagues to see who might be willing and interested in serving on a committee. 

The Board of Education’s constitutional responsibility is clear. At the Jan. 7 meeting at Botelle, Costa told board members they are required to provide for the education of Norfolk’s children and to advocate on their behalf. “The only way a board of education can shed its responsibility is through an act of the legislature and becoming part of another district,” he said.

Costa’s point was this: The boards of education in Norfolk and Colebrook could consolidate on their own through a cooperative agreement and share students between the two schools or send all the students to one school. Such an agreement could be dissolved with a year’s notice. Likewise, he said, Norfolk could send its students to another district by paying tuition—an option that some have floated.

Of the tuition option, Costa said, “The challenge with that is you give up all your ability in decision making but retain all your responsibility. You would still need a superintendent, a board of education, and someone with knowledge of special education.”

The process of studying regionalization is different and requires involvement by the boards of selectmen and finance. During the last push for regionalization, voters in each town approved the creation of a regionalization study committee in December 2012. The final report was not issued until June 2015 and the towns voted later that year. Norfolk approved regionalization, but Colebrook did not.