This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
More than 1,400 residents flooded Kearsarge Regional High School on Saturday morning to prevent their school district from becoming the next Croydon or Pembroke.
In a show of rousing support for public education, voters soundly defeated a proposal that would have slashed the district’s budget and placed the future of multiple schools and scores of staff positions in jeopardy.
The overwhelming opposition – 92% of 1,556 votes cast – ensured Kearsarge would not face the same fate as other school districts that have recently bucked their school boards and significantly reduced their schools’ budgets.
The normally staid and sparsely-attended annual district deliberative session was transformed when a group of 35 residents frustrated by rising taxes and a lack of choices filed a petition last month to cap the district’s budget at $27,000 per student, roughly 17% lower than the amount it currently spends.
That petition was the first in the state to go to a vote following the passage of a new law last year that allows residents to propose budget caps. It could be the first of many to be filed in the coming months.
The proposal triggered a surreal scene as residents piled converged on the high school in the largest public display of the small-town democratic process that those present said they had ever seen. The turnout was so high a caravan of cars temporarily blocked the off-ramp from I-89 and forced some attendees to walk upwards of a mile to the high school.
“I love my community so much right now,” said Benjamin Anderson, 18, of New London. “It felt almost like this family gathering in a way to come out here and support education.”
The meeting featured residents of every generation, from current students to Kearsarge high school graduates from as far back as at least the 1970s.
“It’s like a high school reunion,” said Nina Spinney, a 2021 Kearsarge graduate, who said she spotted roughly 20 former classmates in attendance following a concerted social media campaign over the previous few weeks.
As the district’s school board and municipal budget committee held court beneath the high school’s imposing cougar mascot, dozens of people shared their reflections on the proposal, with the vast majority speaking out against it.
“This school district is the reason my three young sons are who they are today,” said Diane Richter, a veterinarian and Warner resident.
Richter, who said all of her children have “high-functioning autism”, described the school district’s efforts “to carefully manage finances, where they still met my sons’ needs, but they did it so carefully.”
In addition to the rising costs of special education services, the state’s education funding model was a major topics of speakers’ comments.
“Kearsarge is not taxing people out of their homes; the state is,” said Kristen Schultz, a school board representative from Newbury. “And they’re doing this by placing nearly the entire cost of education at the local level.”
Kearsarge’s budget, which is $54.3 million this year, has grown 24% since the 2019-20 school year. The most recent statewide data shows the district’s growth has actually been about one percentage point slower than that of the state as a whole.
This academic year, the district – which includes Warner, Wilmot, Newbury, Sutton, New London, Bradford, and Springfield – spent $32,566 per student.
Proponents of implementing the cap cited Kearsarge’s standardized test scores, which are slightly above the state average, according to data from the Department of Education.
“We’re in the middle of the pack guys, and the math and science are deplorable,” Newbury resident Scott Warde said, referring to the district’s 44% and 37% proficiency rate on the math and science tests last year, respectively. “Nobody here is talking about, in the budget, how to fix that.”
Warde and others who spoke out in support of the budget cap argued that teacher positions would not need to be cut if the district were willing to diminish “overhead” costs. The number of administrators and the salaries they receive were a particularly big target.
The debate also veered into the culture war issues that have become flashpoints at school board meetings across the country.
“Our students need to be taught basic skills in math and not through social agenda programs like common core math,” said petitioner Dick Wright of Newbury. “…We also need to eliminate social-emotional learning and other programs with a political agenda.”
“My kids are not being indoctrinated by anyone,” shot back David Bates of Warner.
Not everyone who opposed the cap was totally opposed to the sentiment that motivated it.
“I do think that there is a legitimate concern about affordability in the towns that the school district represents, and the reality is that many young people who graduate from the school district can't afford to live here,” said Russell Moore of New London. “So I think that it is our responsibility as citizens to really look at every aspect of the budget.”
At 11:30 a.m., two-and-a-half hours after the meeting began, voters lined up to place pink paper ballots in wooden ballot boxes.
The final tally was 1,435 to 113.
The sound rejection of the cap follows surprise votes at annual meetings to significantly shrink school budgets in Croydon in 2022 and Pembroke in 2024, though the Croydon vote was ultimately reversed before it took effect.
The circumstances in both towns, however, were different. In each case, individual voters made motions at poorly-attended annual meetings and the vote took place immediately.
In Kearsarge, the approach involved a per-pupil spending cap rather a flat budget cut, and the petition came nearly a month before the vote occurred, allowing the community to mobilize.
Claire Ketteler, a municipal budget committee member who helped spearhead the petition, said she was heartened by the turnout even as she was disappointed by the result.
“This is what I wanted; I wanted people to participate,” said Ketteler, who weathered several personal attacks from angry speakers.
Ketteler said she wasn’t sure whether she would bring a similar budget cap petition to the district again next year .
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