Albany voters back school board in exploring tuition options

“It passed unanimously,” Tim Sorgi, chair of the Albany School Board, said Wednesday by phone. “I’m very happy with the 100 percent vote we had. Just the fact that people are supportive of the Albany board means a lot.”

The Albany School Options Committee is recommending the town send its K-6 students to Madison Elementary School when the 20-year tuition agreement with Conway expires.

The committee — Anne and Chuck Merrow along with Albany School Board members Dan Bianchino and Sorgi — gave its recommendation at the Jan. 10 Albany board meeting. Also attending were Jim Curran, chair of the Madison School Board and Madison Elementary School Principal Heather Woodward.

“It’s kind of crunch time with where we are now with our tuition contract for K-6,” Sorgi said.

“We have done some work, talking to various towns, and we talked to Madison,” Chuck Merrow said.

“We are going to recommend a memorandum of understanding (with Madison). They’ve given us data, tuition calculation and per-kid costs. We’ve gone through kind of the matrix we have gone through previously with the other schools. I think we’d like to talk with them further and are recommending we go with Madison for K-6,” he said.

If Albany plans to leave Conway Elementary, notice has to be given to Conway three years before the end of the contract, which would be June 30; otherwise, Albany would be extended another year.

Currently, 43 Albany students attend Conway Elementary.

On Monday, at the Conway School Board meeting, Superintendent Kevin Richard, during his board report, said chair Michelle Capozzoli sent a letter to the Albany board expressing a desire for the two boards to meet and begin tuition contract talks.

“Tim Sorgi has responded back that he would like to meet with Conway,” Richard said. “I know it's kind of an interesting time for you, folks, but I do think time is of the essence.”

Richard recommended that board members Ryan Wallace and Cassie Capone take over negotiations for Conway from Randy Davison and Joe Mosca, whose term is set to expire next month. He suggested Wallace serve as the point person for the Conway board.

“It kind of came to mind because you guys are on different committees and you have standing seats that will be here,” Richard said. “Just to simply begin to have the conversation with Albany would be a good thing. Reach out to them, listen, kind of like when you go into any negotiations, interest-based bargaining, what are those interests that you do have and then begin those conversations.”

“I’m on that committee,” Davison said.

“I thought you removed yourself,” replied Richard.

“No, but I don’t know where the conversation went or ended up,” Davison responded.

Capone, Davison and Wallace will serve as the negotiators for Conway.

“I got the letter from Michelle and I thanked them for reaching out,” Sorgi said Wednesday. “I’m looking forward to working with them.

Sorgi said it’s important that Albany has as many options as possible when the current contract expires.

“In the short term, we’ll meet with Conway and try to get a memorandum of understanding,” he said. “The goal in the next two years is to see where we are with Madison and Conway. We as a board just want to have options and the townspeople (on Tuesday) felt the same way.”

Morrow said he and fellow committee members looked at everything from transpiration to special education services.

Sorgi said that based on tuition calculations offered by the Madison School Board, Albany could save about $270,000 per year.

But that wasn’t what was driving their decision, he said.

“If you look at some of the school testing and school data, it’s pretty close. I think in math scores, Madison was below Conway, but science and English language and arts, they were higher than Conway,” Sorgi said.

Earlier in the Jan. 10 meeting, Sorgi questioned a jump in elementary school tuition up to $636,600.

“That’s up about $200,000,” he said, adding, “We’re going up two more students, and it’s costing us $200,000 more. Why?

“Because of the tuition calculations,” Richard explained at that meeting. “There are fewer students (in the school), so it’s not a correlative reduction in the budget with the number of students in decline.”

“That’s staggering,” replied Sorgi.