Newport offers to welcome ousted Unity students

With Unity, a town abutting Newport, forced by the State Department of Education to close its school last week, the Newport School Board has offered to assimilate the ousted students into the Newport system. The addition of students would put a strain on the Newport system in several ways, but the Board felt the difficulties were a better option than the students not having an education venue available at the start of the school year.

According to SAU 43 Director of Education, Virginia O’Brien Irwin, the Unity board contacted Newport for a proposal to take their 117 students into the halls of Richards Elementary and Towle School.

The Newport board has offered to take the students into the system at their full tuition rate. Annually it would cost Unity $11,289 per elementary student and $11,838 per middle school student. With 117 students to pay for, the bill would exceed $1.2 million.

The Unity school board met Tuesday night, but did not make a decision as to which of the seven districts solicited would receive the students, tabling the discussion to a meeting Wednesday night. The talks on Wednesday still did not decide the fate of the Unity kids, but did draw an agreement to petition Sullivan County Superior Court for a special school meeting to decide one of four options.

The proposals include $5.9 million for a new school, $143,000 to make required fire safety repairs, $510,000 to pay tuition and transportation for students to attend school in a neighboring district and $4.7 million for renovations and additions to allay the trepidations of the NH Department of Education and the NH Fire Marshall. The approximately 600 registered voters will decide the issue for the town with a population of approximately 1,700.

Because of legal timelines, the petition cannot be filed before July 23, bringing the decisions up to the wire for students slated to return to school on August 30.

The Unity board will meet again on August 10 to finalize a decision on which district will receive their students and the associated tuition rates, as the long-term “fixes” cannot be accomplished at the opening of the school year.