By CRAIG FREILICH

Amid a county-wide school consolidation study and severe budget cuts, a number of Norwood-Norfolk Central School District residents are up in arms over the future of their school.

Two sets of parents are concerned that any plan to close the district’s schools could be forced on them without their input and without strong leadership from the school administration.

They are urging people to attend the next Board of Education meeting Monday, April 18 to “get the facts” about school mergers and the leadership of the district.

The parents say the concerns they have are shared by parents at all the other school districts in the county, and “what we’re doing other communities will be doing.”

But St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES Superintendent Thomas Burns, who is awaiting the consolidation study report on a variety of alternatives such as district mergers and sharing services, says this year’s difficult budget choices are creating much anxiety.

“Whatever is decided will take at least 18 months to two years of planning. There will have to be referendums, public information meetings,” and lots of discussion,” he said. “Within current statutes, there’s no way anything could happen as quickly as some people think.”

Fliers, Petitions Circulating

However, Pamela and Brian Levendusky and Connie and Hugh Palmer are circulating a flyer critical of Norwood-Norfolk Superintendent Elizabeth Kirnie’s leadership and the decisions the board has made to cut positions and raise administrators’ salaries.

Meanwhile two petitions are also being circulated in the district, one in opposition to any merger with another district and the other calling for Kirnie’s dismissal.

Pamela Levendusky said that some citizens have prepared a long speech for the April 18 meeting, and that they were arranging for several people to deliver it because, she said, school board rules permit a person to speak for only three minutes.

She said she is passionate about these issues because “I have elementary school kids, but I believe I’m helping other kids in the community because they’re my kids too, my future, the future of my community.”

“Everyone in the district is concerned about mergers,” Palmer said, and concerned about “maintaining our community. This is their school, and we’re speaking on behalf of all the districts.”

Said Levendusky, “What we’re doing other communities will be doing.

“We all have to band together. We need leadership from the board and the administration. We’ve got to rally the county and say, ‘What do you want?’ The board works for the taxpayers, not for the superintendent.”

Rumors Abound

Rumors within the district of imminent school closings and students being shifted to other schools followed a newspaper report of a March Norwood-Norfolk district meeting where Kirnie said the district could run out of resources to educate students within several years if similar funding cuts continued. School board president David Flint suggested that consolidations could be necessary if the financial picture does not improve.

Since then, other St. Lawrence County superintendents, including those at Brasher Falls Central and in Canton, have made similar statements.

But closing of local schools is a fear many parents are hearing.

“Kids are reading in the newspapers in the library that mergers are coming. A teacher told me the fifth graders are terrified that school will be closing,” Levendusky said. “The kids are hearing this. We don’t need this negativity for our school.”

“Louisville merged with Massena, remember?” Levendusky said. “And where is the K-through-6 school in Louisville now? It’s closed now. And now they’re talking about K-through-8 at Norwood-Norfolk.”

She said the board has been given information from citizens “about how mergers don’t work – research from universities around the country,” and she’s worried that without “the facts” and with inadequate leadership from the school administration the district will be at the mercy of forces outside their control.

BOCES Study Expected Soon

Results of the BOCES consolidation study are expected later this spring. It will examine sharing services, consolidations and mergers, developing regional high schools and other regional programs, and “tuitioning,” where school districts might take students from outside a district and be reimbursed for the expense. Those are steps districts throughout the state are investigating to keep education going while taxpayers and legislators wrestle with funding.

But in the meantime, BOCES Superintendent Burns says that a difficult budget season, with programs and jobs being cut nearly everywhere, is “creating anxiety, and lots of speculation about what will happen.

“I think people have mixed the two topics – this year’s budgets and the regional study – and parents worry about their kids going someplace else next September.”

He said the reports they’ve asked for are just beginning to come in.

“This conversation is going to be a long one, and it should be separate from this year’s budget discussions,” he said.

“I credit boards of education and superintendents wanting to do these studies, because we have to be prepared,” Burns said.

“It’s not just about cost efficiency but continued opportunity for North Country children, especially in secondary schools.

“The enrollment level, if not still diminishing is static, and they see that we can’t continue as we have been. Our component school districts know they need options.”

Buoyed at Response

Meanwhile, Connie Palmer said she was buoyed at the response of the board to students’ pleas at the last board meeting April 5.

Students at the meeting spoke about the admirable job that music teacher Jonathan Burnett had been doing, and persuaded the board not to cut his job to half-time, as was the plan.

“It was amazing. The students spoke from the heart,” Palmer said. “We want to get more people involved, to let them know their voice does count, not just at our school, but all schools.