Top Story No. 1: John Fuller shuttered after 66 years

CONWAY — John H. Fuller Elementary School was a staple in North Conway Village since it opened its doors to the first students in 1957. Now, 66 years later, the K-6 school located on Pine Street is empty. In September, no students were starting their educational journeys in this building, learning how to read and write, all while in a safe haven.

The Conway School Board had targeted closing an elementary school and relocating the sixth grade to Kennett Middle School in the fall of 2025, but the timeframe was moved up a year after the school district’s budget failed on April 8 for the first time in more than two decades.

The default budget, about $1.2 million less than the school board’s budget, went into effect, triggering a series of events.

Faced with the mandate to close an elementary school, despite the school district’s administrative team’s recommendation to close Pine Tree School, the Conway School Board instead voted 7-0 on April 17 to close John Fuller instead.

Now, Pine Tree, a K-2 school, is called Lakeside Primary School, while Conway Elementary, which was built the same year as John Fuller, is now Mountainside Intermediate School, a grade 3-5 school.

After the vote, Assistant Superintendent Aimee Frechette (now the school superintendent and formerly principal of Pine Tree) asked to speak.

“I just want to make a statement that whatever the vote may be tonight, we cannot walk out of this room feeling any sort of animosity toward one another,” she said. “This is absolutely an emotional issue for every single one of us. We all have ties to particular schools in our community. We all represent different stakeholders whose opinions and values matter in this monumental decision. But we’re going to leave here, some are going to be happy, some are going to be sad.”

She added, “The decisions brought forth tonight place the burden on us as community members, as parents and as educators to move away from each of our school communities and move toward being one united school community.”

Lakeside and Mountainside opened their doors in the fall, and both schools took on the nicknames Eagles, joining Kennett High and Kennett Middle as birds of a feather.

Today, a John Fuller Advisory Committee is working to come up with a plan for what to do with the property. At its first meeting on Dec. 4, members learned the building cannot be sold until 2028 at the earliest because there is an HVAC and mechanical operations bond that needs to be paid off.