Lee H. Kellogg long-range panel looks to school's future

As the committee tried to establish the top four issues, Mechare offered three off the top of her head: staffing, enrollment and building maintenance.

In the past, some taxpayers have questioned whether it’s cost-efficient to run such a small school when Kellogg’s students could be sent on a tuition basis to other Region One elementary schools, almost of all of which have excess capacity.

Mechare said the town conducted a study in 1981 that determined if Kellogg’s enrollment dipped below 87 students, then it would be less expensive to bus the students to surrounding schools.

At that time, enrollment was in the 90s; it rose about 30 percent over the next 20 years. The student population has never reached the bottom-line threshold since then.

The town will face a dramatic increase in education spending in two years. This June, Kellogg will graduate 22 eighth-graders, most of whom will attend Housatonic Valley Regional High School. The tuition bill for those students will arrive the following year (costs are assessed in October of each year; towns are billed in the following fiscal year, which begins July 1).

Only 11 Kellogg students went to Housatonic this year, so the town’s spending on educating its secondary students could double. The cost for each student at Housatonic this year is $16,793.

This year the cost of running Kellogg rose from $1,672,732 to $1,712,288, or 2.4 percent. However, the town’s total education spending dropped from $2.85 million to $2.7 million, or by 5.2 percent, because of a decrease last year in the number of students from Falls Village attending Housatonic.

With only 101 students (down from 118 in 1999-2000) Kellogg is easily the smallest elementary/middle school among the six towns in the Region One School District. In the last three years alone, the school has lost almost 13 percent of its student population. The high cost of housing and the scarcity of good-paying jobs have been cited as factors.

"The demographics of the town are changing," said committee and school board member Betsy Howie. "This town has been extremely supportive of public education," added Mechare, a former board of education member and retired teacher at Kent Center School.

"The school is the main thing that will attract people here," Cohn said.

Still, change can stir the pot. Last year, first-year Principal Maria Bulson decided to expand the number of multi-age groups — or the number of grades that hold their classes together.

Previously, the school grouped kindergarten, first grade and second grade into one class; grades six and seven in another; and all other grades in their own classes.

But beginning last fall, there were four multi-age groupings: kindergarten and grade one; grades two and three; grades four and five; and grades six and seven. Grade eight remains a stand-alone class. The multi-age groupings are team-taught by more than one faculty member, so no teacher had to be let go.

Some members of the public objected, although many of the complaints were about the way in which the plan was decided and announced. Some felt there was not enough openness in the process.

Mechare said she thought current levels of staffing could be maintained, even as enrollments shrink, but that adding a new position could be a tough sell to taxpayers.

The committee agreed to look closely at several topics that could be grouped into four interrelated categories: building/technology/maintenance; assessments/programs/academics; enrollment/staffing; and school-community relations.

The committee will issue quarterly reports and hopes to complete its recommendations to the Board of Education by next March. The next meeting will be March 13 at 5:30 p.m. in the school library.

Other committee members who attended the Feb. 14 meeting included former school board chairman Kent Allyn, school custodian Bill Beebe, teacher Robin Faust, teacher Eileen Rogers, librarian Joan Wingard, Bulson and Region One Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain.