By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
CLAREMONT, N.H. — The Claremont School Board unanimously voted to agree to be the Unity School District anchor school with an agreed upon tuition of $16,000 per year during the last board meeting on Oct. 2.
“I had presented this a year ago and they had never gotten back to me, and they’ve always been our anchor school so it didn’t seem to be a rush,” said Unity School Board Chair Marjorie Erickson. “We wanted to make it formal. We need to sign it and they need to sign it so that needs to be done, but because it is in the minutes it is pretty formal now.”
Erickson explained that Unity students have school choice in high school, and being an anchor school means that Claremont needs to take anybody and everybody who wants to attend there.
Erickson said the board has had plenty of time to look at this proposal and discuss it, and she was at the meeting to find out where they stood. Claremont School Board Chair Heather Whitney conferred with her colleagues and school staff, asking Assistant Superintendent Michael Koski if he had any issues with it. He simply replied, “no.”
This proposal was drafted by a mutual lawyer of the Unity and Claremont School Boards, Erickson told the board.
Erickson said that in the past they had bounced the idea around about the tuition cost being $16,000, which was agreeable but there was no official amount.
“It was my understanding that we all agree, except that Mr. (Michael) Petrin was not present at that meeting,” Claremont School Board Chair Heather Whitney said. “But the board agreed with the $16,000, and that was the recommended amount from the superintendent at the time.
The board decided to add a “friendly amendment” to the motion to include this tuition amount for the remaining duration of this contract. Vice Chair Frank Sprague was in approval of the contact, saying after reading over the contract, “I am comfortable with this.”
The motion was made by Sprague, and it was unanimously approved.
The next step is to remove the draft and bring this agreement, with the $16,000 tuition price, to the Claremont School Board to sign. This is expected to take place at their next meeting as an agenda item.
