By Avice Meehan

The most recent attempt to bring Norfolk and Colebrook to plan for the future of their respective elementary schools has quietly fizzled out—made official by a mid-June vote by the Colebrook Board of Selectmen to dissolve its half of a collaboration committee. In an email to residents, First Selectman Brad Bremer said the town remains open to working with Norfolk, but that the board wanted to “free up” the Colebrook Consolidated School “to pursue other options to ensure the long term viability of K-6 education in Colebrook.”

Nothing substantive occurred after a February meeting between the two towns in the Hall of Flags at Botelle Elementary School—certainly on the Norfolk side of the equation. The four-person committee named by First Selectman Matt Riiska never received a charge or held a meeting. Nor did members of the Norfolk committee meet with their Colebrook counterparts, except for an informal conversation in the safe zone of the Norbrook Farm Brewery.

Indeed, Riiska and Virginia Coleman-Prisco, who chairs the Board of Education, have not sat down and spoken with each other, despite despite email exchanges and indirect communication through various proxies. Now that Riiska has confirmed he’s not running for re-election, the future will be in the hands of a new generation of leaders.

What might that look like? It’s hard to say.

Riiska was a veteran of school consolidation discussions—he was part of a committee that looked at creating a single, regional campus back in the 1990s. Although he kickstarted the recent round of meetings with a series of provocative columns, Riiska admitted that he let the matter slide given everything else on his plate—the new firehouse, multiple bridge projects, annual budget planning. It was telling, for example, that a scheduling conflict prevented him from attending a meeting at Botelle. Instead, he sent Sandy Evans and Henry Tirrell.

Tirrell, a current selectman and member of the Norfolk collaboration committee, has a brought different perspective to the conversation. The son of a retired Botelle teacher and a graduate of the school himself, Tirrell and his wife have a child at Botelle, and he is friendly with many Colebrook parents. He believes the process needs to be more open and to involve a greater number of people, particularly in the wake of a 2024 meeting in Colebrook that caught many in Norfolk unaware.

“There are lots of people in both towns who want to see the best for the kids and both towns have amazing kids,” Tirrell said, during a conversation focused on education. “It is pretty stark to see the population trends for the last 20 years. At what point is inaction actually bad for the schools?”
This is ultimately the question.

Responsibility for ensuring quality education in Norfolk rests with the Board of Education. That board can develop collaboration agreements to share teachers and services with Colebrook, Barkhamsted and New Hartford—or any other town, for that matter. But only the Board of Selectman can kick off the process that might lead to consolidation, including a school closure. Voters retain the ultimate authority to approve or reject consolidation.

Each town bears scars from the last, unsuccessful go-round when the recommended approach was to close the Colebrook Consolidated School and move everyone into Botelle. That occurred a decade ago when Colebrook voters rejected regionalization. Each school enrolled about 100 students during the 2014-15 academic year, but current enrollments have dropped well below the projected levels and now stand at about 60 students apiece. At the same time, Colebrook and Norfolk have school superintendents and principals who were not around at the time and will have fresh leadership in key roles.

Connecticut is what’s known as a home rule state, which means local communities enjoy a great deal of autonomy. But the legislature could try yet again to require smaller school districts to combine to achieve economies of scale, among other benefits. That would be painful—probably more painful than sitting together, listening to different viewpoints and working toward a shared vision for two small communities that are more alike than they are different.