Henniker School deliberative session: Contracts, budget, but not open enrollment

As Henniker voters prepare for their school deliberative session, the hottest topic in New Hampshire education — open enrollment — isn’t on the table due to continuing uncertainty.

“The board decided not to put it on the ballot, because so much is up in the air,” said Superintendent of Schools Jacqueline Coe. Among other things, the state senate has endorsed a bill that could override local control of the issue, rendering any vote on the issue irrelevant.

Under open enrollment, school districts would have to cover the cost of students who decide to attend public school in a different district. The other two school districts that share SAU24 with Henniker — Weare and John Stark — will have open-enrollment proposals on their annual meeting ballots. They propose to allow in a small number of students while preventing students from exiting to stave off out-of-district tuition expenses.

“The boards wanted to be very clear this has nothing to do with feelings about parental choice. It’s protecting our financial position. It’s purely a defensive mode,” Coe said.

Deliberative session for Henniker School District will take place Monday, Feb. 2, at the Community School starting at 7 p.m. Items to be considered include a new two-year contract for the district’s roughly 45 teachers, and an operating budget that is up almost 3%. At deliberative session, voters can discuss and to an extent amend items. Final votes will take place on Election Day, March 10.

Henniker’s warrant includes a $11.2 million budget, up 3% from last year’s $10.9 million budget.

Cost hikes include a 16.9% increase in health insurance.

“Like everyone, we keep experiencing really big increases in health insurance,” said Coe.

Special education costs include a $150,000 increase in tuition to other schools to fulfill some students’ Individual Education Plans for some students, and another $142,000 for psychologist contracted services. However, the salary for psychologists is down $65,000 and speech contracted services are down $89,000.

“We go back and forth between whether we can hire or contract” for specialty positions like psychologists, said Coe. “Most of the time, if we need a full-time person we’d rather hire than contract, but it has been near-impossible to hire some of these positions.”

A separate warrant article concerns a proposed two-year contract for teachers, giving raises of 3% to 4% depending on the level of experience and education. It would add an estimated $230,828 in the coming school year and $165,512 the year after that.

Henniker Community School has about 400 students in grades pre-K through 8. One school board position will be on the ballot.

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