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Croydon School Board OKs budget revote

By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
CROYDON — Croydon voters will receive a second opportunity to approve the school board’s original budget recommendation of $1.7 million for next school year, though success of that effort will hinge as much on voter turnout as the ballot outcome.

The Croydon School Board announced on Tuesday that a special meeting will be held on Saturday, May 7, for voters to reconsider the approved budget for the 2022-23 school year.

The special meeting, petitioned by residents last week, will ask voters by a ballot vote whether to restore next year’s budget to the originally recommended $1.7 million.

At Town Meeting on Saturday, March 12, Croydon residents passed an amendment to reduce the district’s proposal to $800,000, a 53 percent cut, which the voters then passed, 20 to 14.

But voter turnout will be a critical factor to change the budget.

Under state statute for special meetings, at least half of the district’s registered voters must cast a ballot for the outcome to be valid.

Croydon, who has 565 registered voters, will need a minimum participation of 283 voters.

Several petitioners told The Eagle Times they are confident they will be able to encourage the needed turnout.

The petition that led to the special meeting contained 145 signatures.

The special meeting will be held at the YMCA Camp Coniston at 9 a.m. on May 7.

In preparation for that meeting, the Croydon School Board will hold a public hearing at Croydon Town Hall on Friday, April 8, at 6:30 p.m.

Should the vote fail to restore funding, school board members indicated on Tuesday that they would likely consider the use of “learning pods”, sometimes referred to as “micro schools”, a contracted program which provides individualized instruction to learning groups of approximately five to 10 students.

Vice-chair Aaron McKeon said that Croydon would likely need to contract with two microschool providers. Prenda, a company that contracts with the New Hampshire Department of Education, would provide instruction for students in grades 1 through 4. The district would contact KaiPod Learning, a Massachusetts-based company, to serve students in grades 5 through 12.

But Croydon families continue to vehemently oppose learning pods as an adequate education solution.

“The two scariest words to me about Prenda and the KaiPod model are ‘for profit,’” said Thomas Moore, a former Croydon School Board member. “They want to make a profit.”

These companies refer to hiring learning “guides” or “coaches” without specifying whether their instructors need to have a state teaching license, Moore noted.

“Their bottom line is making money, not doing what is best for our children,” Moore said.

Croydon parents also objected to the board’s suggestion that the district might only offer school-choice for up to $9,000 per child, which would only fully fund tuition for Croydon’s private school options, which include Newport Montessori School and Mount Royal Academy, a Catholic school in Sunapee.

Under this proposal, families who currently tuition their students to the Newport School District, which is Croydon’s anchor district, would have to pay the remaining $8,880 themselves.

The board members admitted that they have not contacted the school districts about possibly negotiating lower tuition rates, though McKeon said he spoke to Jennifer Opalinski, director of the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center about whether Croydon students could still attend the program if they are not enrolled in Newport Middle High School.

The board said they will be sending a letter this week to Croydon’s contracting schools and districts to explain the current budget situation, including the upcoming special meeting.

reporter @eagletimes.com

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