Your School Board has formed the Strategic Organization Committee (SOC) to embark on an open, transparent, community-involved review to completely analyze our physical environment.
The goal of this committee is to determine the best possible, educationally rich, safe, socially responsive, community sensitive, financially responsible, and organizationally sound physical model while providing for enhanced diversity and cultural understanding in support of our ConVal community and students.
ConVal supports 11 physically separate schools: eight elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Our school population has been on a steadily decreasing track with ConVal now having approximately 1,993 students with a capacity for 3,530 students as of November 2022. Our school capacity far exceeds our current enrollment, and enrollment is not expected to significantly increase in the foreseeable future. The latest demographic projections suggest a very small growth in enrollments over the next decade.
We are in the process of selecting an outside organization that is experienced with activities like this from working with other school districts and states. The selected organization will provide their expertise and assist us in this project. We have issued a Request for Information, received replies, selected three organizations to receive our Request for Proposal and will shortly select our partner organization.
The key to this process will be community engagement. We will have as involved partners in our committee: community members, parents and students, Select Board members, School Board members, ConVal District Administration, teachers, and staff.
The SOC will be holding Community Forums and individual community meetings to share, discuss and receive input. We will produce a report detailing the committee’s work and determined proposals in proposing a redesign for the district.
There can be more than one viable approach recommended. Any change to the number of active elementary schools will require a 2/3 public vote to amend our Articles of Agreement.
We expect this critical activity will take approximately 6 months to complete once we select and engage our partner organization.
It is important to note that we do not enter into this activity with a preconceived notion of what, if anything, should be done. We proceed with open minds fulfilling our mandate to provide the most educationally rich, cost-effective, safe, and responsive environment for our students and community.
We will keep all updated.