Little school plays big part in town life

Text by Wiley Wood
Photo by June Peterson

With three positions open on Norfolk’s Board of Education and six candidates standing for the positions in this fall’s elections, public interest in the “Meet the Candidates Forum” was high. About 50 residents attended the event at the Norfolk Hub on Monday, Oct. 21.

The first question raised was the candidates’ position on consolidating Botelle Elementary School with a school from a neighboring town. All said they were open to the possibility. Donna Rubin, the only candidate to have been on the Board of Education (BOE) during the failed two-year effort, from 2013 to 2015, to bring Botelle under the same roof with the Colebrook’s elementary school, said she had been opposed before, having considered the conditions unfair to Norfolk, but believed, now that school enrollment has dipped to 75 students, that “we have no choice but to look at consolidation.” Botelle’s enrollment in 2013 was 120 students.

Edward (Ned) Barron, an attorney and recent arrival in Norfolk who sits as an alternate on the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Board of Assessment Appeals Zonin Board of Appeals, credited the failure of the last effort to “lack of positive communication between the communities.” He described consolidation as something that is going to happen. “The amount of money spent per student is unsustainable,” said Barron.

The per-student costs for Botelle were $22,964, according to 2017-18 figures published by the Connecticut School Finance Project. This puts the costs for Norfolk above North Canaan ($22,899) and Colebrook ($19,634), but below Salisbury ($23,989), Canaan ($29,035) and Cornwall ($35,000).

Kevin Gundlach, a longtime resident of Norfolk and an alumnus of Botelle (he is also this paper’s art director), said the only proposition that was off the table for him was shutting down the school. “Why does it have to be Colebrook?” Gundlach asked, citing the four towns in Region 7 as possible consolidation partners. He also raised the possibility of creating and marketing a magnet program that would attract students from other towns to Botelle.

The program’s moderator, Tom Hodgkin, then changed the subject to the various stakeholders in the school—the students, the staff and faculty, the parents and the taxpayers. To wWhich, asked Hodgkin, was the Board of Education primarily responsible to?

“The students, 100 percent,” said Gordon Anderson, a full-time resident of Norfolk since 2013 with 22 years of experience as an educator of children with cognitive disabilities. “We’re there,” said Anderson, “to ensure the best possible educational support for every student in this district.”

There was a general agreement that the children were the primary focus, but Barron stressed that the town’s buy-in to the school was also important, and that the BOE was responsible for securing it. “The Board of Education,” said Barron, repeating a quote, “connects the will of the community to the education of the children.”

John Dede Shazo, who recently secured a grant for Botelle for upgraded audio equipment and is the father of a Botelle sixth-grader and a Regional 7 ninth-grader, stressed the importance of providing students with the cultural and civic literacy they will need to be future citizens of the town. At the same time, he said the BOE owed it to the taxpayers “to be clear and transparent with them about how the money is being spent and assure them that it’s being spent in the best way possible.”

“What’s the best and most special thing about Botelle School?” asked Hodgson. 

“The kids,” said Virginia Coleman-Prisco, an assistant professor at Mercy College and the mother of a Botelle fifth grader and a Botelle first grader (she also frequently writes about Botelle in these pages), “and. “And the staff and the families. The Botelle Spooktacular. The great cultural events that the PTO gets grants for.” More broadly, she pointed to the healthy environment in which Norfolk children grow up, spending time outdoors and riding their bikes to the library and the store like children of an earlier time. “These kids are great kids.”

A questioner from the audience said that only one in every two children in Botelle on average is ready for the next grade and asked what the BOE can do about that. The candidates expressed a general disbelief that this could be true but a willingness to address the issue if it were.

A check of the metrics used by the state to rate schools suggests a rosier picture. According to the Next Generation Accountability System, which assesses 12 different indicators, Botelle Elementary School scored 73.1 out of 100 in the 2017-18 year. This is comparable to other schools in Litchfield County. Colebrook and Salisbury scored higher, with 81.2 and 76.1 respectively; Sharon and North Canaan scored lower, with 71 and 69.3.

A video recording of the complete forum is available online at https://vimeo.com/368140574. Election Day is November 5.