January 14, 2025
At last evening's meeting between the Winchester School Board and the Winchester High School Selection Committee, the Committee chose not to move forward with either of the remaining two anchor school candidates (Pioneer Valley and Monadnock) and opted to fully endorse their recommendation of moving forward with Hinsdale High School. The school board, after deliberating on the recommendation, voted to begin tuition negotiations with the Hinsdale School Board to establish an agreement to go into effect in the 2026-2027 academic year. The tuition agreement will be presented to the Town of Winchester in a spring special meeting, one month after which the town will vote to approve it. If approved, the agreement will then be sent to the New Hampshire State Board of Education for final approval. The move now signals action for the Hinsdale School Board to discuss the invitation to begin negotiations and vote to formally approve participation.
As has been shared in the past, and as you may have read recently in the Keene Sentinel, three area high schools had been identified by the Winchester High School Selection Committee as plausible destinations for our high school students in the near future. The three school districts that had emerged as viable options for such a relationship were Pioneer Valley (Northfield, MA), Monadnock Regional (Swanzey), and Hinsdale Middle High School. Two other school districts had been invited to engage in the process, (Keene and Franklin County Tech), however they chose to not participate.
Initially, the Committee was charged with recommending no more than two schools to be placed on the upcoming March warrant so as to give the Town of Winchester the opportunity to choose the anchor school from the final two. In that there was only one school recommended, there is no longer the need to have a warrant article for this purpose. However, the tuition agreement that is negotiated with Hinsdale must be approved by the Winchester voters before moving on for final authorization for the state, so all taxpayers will still have a vote in the process.
The Committee and school board will still be hosting a community forum on January 23, 2025 at 6:00 PM at the Town Hall to explain the entire process that was followed to arrive at this recommendation and the reasons that led up to choosing only one school. All stakeholders are encouraged to attend.
Please visit the school district website for more information about this process, and please feel free to submit questions about it to wsdhsprocess@wnhsd.org. We will post your question and the answer to a Frequently Asked Questions page on the website to ensure that all of the information is being shared.
We look forward to seeing you on January 23, and we are excited about the future of our students as we work through this experience together.