Controversy Returns to Winchester's Thayer High

By Dan Gorenstein on Tuesday, July 15, 2003.

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In the past 25 years, Winchesterï¿½s high school has gone through several transformations.

It went from fights in the halls and high dropout rates to a nationally recognized school.

Recently Thayer has flirted with losing its accreditation thanks to a crumbling building, and poor curriculum.

This spring the town narrowly voted to close the school, and send students to Keene.

In part two of our series on Thayer High, New Hampshire Public Radioï¿½s Dan Gorenstein reports that decision remains divisive.

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Hear part 1 of this series

It was a drizzly Friday evening in June.

Winchesterï¿½s Thayer High School held its last graduation as a four year school. Happy people headed for their cars, or to the local YMCA for an after graduation party chaperoned by teachers and parents of Thayerï¿½s 2003 graduating class.

English teacher Peter Issenstedder watched as people left the gym.

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:00 More people show up for this than anything else. Everybody wants to see their kids graduate... but I donï¿½t think you will get something as intimate and heart felt when these kids are someplace else.

Graduating classes tend to be smaller than 50 students.

But the gym, which seats 700 people, is usually packed.

Town native Karen Thompson is the mother of a graduate, and former Thayer High teacher, and herself a graduate.

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:37 27 graduates, I am guessing 600 people. People getting in at 5pm to make sure they have a good seat ... grandparents giving scholarships to their grandchild. Families of lost loved ones giving scholarships to students who may have been similar to the loved one they lsot.

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1:33 I think it was bittersweet b/c of it being the last year as a complete school, ... I think a lot of people sat in that room thinking, wow this is it. This is the last time we are going to see a graduation like this at T.

Marcia Ammannd went to Thayer.

So did her children.

Sheï¿½s been on the school board, and is on the schoolï¿½s staff.

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1:25 I watched the band marchï¿½and the uniforms and knowing how much it took to get the money into the budget for those uniforms, and that is such a wonderful sound, and feeling sad.

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Sfx: art show sound

Kevin Whippy acknowledges the townï¿½s children will lose some of the benefits of a small town high school.

2:00 ... ï¿½but is it worth that, than not having physics, chemistry, I donï¿½t think so...

Whippy says some people are making too much of Thayerï¿½s closing.

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...a lot is made up of this is the heart of the town. If you go to the b-ball games, there is 100 people at mostï¿½you go to a baseball game, there are 20 people, you go to a soccer game there is none...

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:00 ...itï¿½s a school in trouble.

The Keene Sentinelï¿½s Executive Editor Tom Carney.

...There arenï¿½t enough textbooks to go around, the textbooks are old, the town is too poor to buy the stuff it needs to fund an adequate education. The building is falling apart, has been for years.

Assistant Superintendent Margaret Sullivan.

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1:54 vilations to the fire code, the electric code, asbestos problems,....2:14 the rooms, b/c they were built in 1922, have one outlet. And we canï¿½t use extension cords.

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:35 ... itï¿½s a depressed atmosphere...And thatï¿½s not good for the kids. They need to be exposed to positive things, positive surroundings, positive people, and expanded curriculum.

Thatï¿½s Meredith Galleano.

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1:20 they need to have good science labs, good home economics, they deserve that. Kids in W. deserve that just as much as kids in Marlboro, Chesterfieldï¿½and that is what K. offers.

That argument has won the day.

As of this fall Winchesterï¿½s 9th graders will start attending Keene High School.

But not everyone in town is happy with that decision.

Karen Thompson agrees, local students deserve better than they are getting at Thayer.

But she believes Winchester can offer it.

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2:06 ï¿½I donï¿½t have all the answers but strong administration, empowering, given kdis opportunities...weï¿½ve done it before. Weï¿½ve done it. and done it, and done it.

The school has had success.

Most recently, from 1981 through 1994, principal a principal named Dennis Littky put Thayer on the map.

People moved to town to enroll their kids in Thayer.

Educators paid $100 dollars to visit.

Thayerï¿½s teachers traveled around the country talking about their success and training other teachers in their methods.

The Keene Sentinelï¿½s Tom Carney.

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3:38 it had a lot more energy, it had a lot more innovative things, they had apprenciceships, they worked with businesses. There was a real effort at Thayer to show the kids there was more to the world than they had seen.

During that time, the school had its critics.

Some townspeople tried to remove Littky as principal.

The story became the subject of news reports, a book, and a TV movie.

But in 1994 on his own terms, Dennis Littky left, and according to some, so did the schoolï¿½s sparkle.

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:03 ï¿½ at this point, even as hard as we work, we canï¿½t give them all that we were abel to give them ten years ago.

Marcia Ammannd.

...And itï¿½s not just academics, and itï¿½s not just spirit, and itï¿½s not just emotional support. Itï¿½s pieces of all those things that arenï¿½t there now.

If the school isnï¿½t performing, if the town wonï¿½t increase taxes to improve Thayer, Meredith Galleano wonders why not embrace Keene as an excellent option.

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:00 ... I justï¿½I just feel that some people, itï¿½s human nature. We like what is comfortableï¿½but I am telling you that is not what we need to teach our kids. We need to teach our kids that sometimes you have to do things in life that are not as comfortable, you have to stretch yourself. And you try some things and you find out that you have even more going on then you thought you did, you will grow as a person.

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4:45...she moved to this town two years agoï¿½she obviously looked at the school system before she moved hereï¿½if she didnï¿½t like it, she should have moved to K. You donï¿½t move to a town and try to change things, you just donï¿½t do that.

Thatï¿½s Beth Marsh, Karen Thomsponï¿½s 18-year old daughter.

Marshï¿½s scorn for Galleano is reminiscent.

Some 15 years ago, Littky faced similar contempt over his new ideas about education.
It was Marshï¿½s mother, who embraced d that change Littky brought to the small town.

His influence on Thompson was so great; her daughter invited the former principal to her graduation this June.

Thompson steps in to explain her daughters outburst.

5:17 ï¿½out of my little journal from D. he wrote, pioneers are never popular. Pioneers try new things. Is Meredith Galeano trying to try new things? Itï¿½s not new.

Almost all of the towns around Winchester have decided to send their students to consolidated school districts.

But some people in Winchester were nervous.

So in an attempt to calm fears, Galleano helped arrange 3 tours of Keene High.

The principal and teachers were on hand to answer questions.

No more than 12 people ever showed up.

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:50 I was disappointed that more people didnï¿½t take advantage of it, b/c before you make a decision, make an educated decision. Have a look at it, have enough of an open mind to look at it. ï¿½I just think that is a shame.

Why didnï¿½t people at least look at it?

Karen Thompson.

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4:45 as the book said, their roots are deep. And this is where they belong. And K. doesnï¿½t make any sense to them. And as adults, why would they put themselves into a situation that would make their childrens lives any better. I wouldnï¿½t go. And I am an educated person. I feel like I believe in diversity and allowing my kids to have opportunity. K. is not a place I want to go take a tour of. And not b/c itï¿½s a bad place, but b/c itï¿½s not right for my child.

Marcia Ammannd.

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:07 (why didnï¿½t people go visit K) I guess it just makes you feel disloyal, to your own school. To your own place, to your own roots. to say, it is better, and the only thing we can do, or to close down the school so casually.

Besides a sense of disloyalty, something else is going on.

Deserved or not, it seems Winchester has a bad reputation.

Thatï¿½s something Galleano discovered when she moved to town.

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... I started hearing all the terrible slurs about W. which I personally feel most of them are unfair. But I realize there was a stigma ... b/c of the schools, b/c of some other things.

And Thayer science teacher Susan Romano fears that reputation will be tough to shake.

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2:21 ...people will always look for ways to nurture prejudice against each other. Well, up here, they devide with these socio-economic barriers. So our kids end up with a stigma. And thatï¿½s what they carry into these schools. Itï¿½s not that they walk in the door and are immediately on an equal footing.

Just because Keene is more affluent, says Marcia Ammannd, doesnï¿½t mean the kids will be outcasts.

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4:28 ... I donï¿½t see how coming from W. is going to hurt them. ...I donï¿½t see a big bus rolling up to school with a big sign that says Winchester on it.

The story isnï¿½t over yet.

There may be an opportunity to bring another high school to Winchester, or even to resurrect Thayer.

The Monadnock School District has received federal money that allows communities to pitch specialized schools that would be open to kids from all over the region.

Former Thayer principal Dennis Littky says it could ease some of the anger in Winchester.

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1:15 letï¿½s say you built a school for 100 high school kids, it may be perfect, it would allow the kids who want to stay in W. to stay in W. and allow the 100 who want to go to K. to go to K. and that may be the best...itï¿½s not as great as having your own school, but it still keeps identity for the people that want that identity.

What should a small community do when itï¿½s offered a chance to send its students to a high school with higher test scores, a better reputation, and more extra curricular activities?

Should it give up the excellent student to teacher ratio, the walk to campus, the graduations full of kids from a town where anybody knows everybody?

Neither decision is just right.

Assistant Superintendent Margaret Sullivan..

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2:05 when you leave something to go to something else, there is always a wonderful something else you are going to, but there is also a wonderful something you are leaving behind too. And I think thatï¿½s the story.

As of this fall, 9th graders from Winchester will join students from Chesterfield, Harrisville, Marlborough, Marlow, Nelson, Stoddard, Westmoreland, and of course Keene.

Thayer High School will graduate two more classes before it closes.

For NHPR News, Iï¿½m DG.