The following is from a letter from Chair Laura Mafera on behalf of the Francestown School Committee to ConVal Superintendent Ann Forrest, School Board Chair Richard Dunning and members of the ConVal School Board.

We write to you in this open, public fashion because of the urgent need for accurate, clear and transparent information for the voters in the ConVal School District (ConVal), prior to the March 11 vote.

Members of the Francestown School Committee (FSC) had the pleasure of attending the Feb. 12 community forum organized by ConVal in relation to the upcoming vote to allow Francestown to leave the school district. We were taken aback by the presentation of misleading financial information about the impact of Francestown leaving ConVal.

As you know, we have been working toward the upcoming vote for about a year and have requested a meeting in our letter issued on Jan. 16 to try to collaborate and work towards a mutually beneficial plan that allows both parties to move forward in a constructive fashion. As you know, ConVal has refused this meeting.

To date, the FSC has utilized publicly available data as well as the financial model published by ConVal to estimate the financial impact of our town leaving the district. This data was included in our minority report sent to the State Board of Education and was also sent to ConVal.

Given that ConVal opposes the effort for Francestown to leave the district, we can only speculate that the latest round of conflicting “data” put out during the community forum is intended to confuse and mislead the public as it diverges substantially from what was presented to and unanimously approved by the State Board of Education.

Specifically, the assumed increased costs of the SAU are particularly troubling, as Francestown has made it clear that their withdrawal will not result in any increased incremental SAU costs. In their minority report, Francestown intended to pay the full incremental cost of a multi-district SAU and has since made it clear that Francestown intends to withdraw from the SAU should withdrawal from the district be approved.

The benefits of the latter approach to ConVal are twofold. The burden of the SAU withdrawal feasibility study will be solely on Francestown and would not distract or consume resources from ConVal School District, and the need for a multi-district SAU and its associated costs would no longer burden both Francestown and ConVal School District.

Despite making both these points abundantly clear to the School Board, they were ignored. Even further, rather than respecting Francestown’s plan and attempts to accommodate the district, these SAU costs were inflated to a perplexingly high incremental cost of approximately $1.5 million without explanation.

In addition to the inflated SAU costs, the assumed withdrawal of both Dublin and Francestown simultaneously have been consistently presented in concert to amplify the perceived impact of Francestown (or Dublin) leaving ConVal.

Though the withdrawal of both towns simultaneously is a scenario worth considering for ConVal, it is unfair to only present this scenario since Francestown and Dublin’s withdrawal from the district are separate warrant articles, have separate withdrawal plans and would have markedly different impacts on the finances of the remaining ConVal district should withdrawal be approved.

Our disappointment in the district’s approach to the vote compels us to request that the district disclose its supporting data and calculations behind the misleading presentation, including assumptions used to calculate incremental SAU costs, the data solely attributable to impacts related to Francestown’s withdrawal, and all notes and records which would shed light on whether the district’s Budget Committee and its chair participated in generating the data reported by ConVal, and whether the Budget Committee endorses the misleading data.