Confusion Abounds as Chariho Budget Referendum Approaches

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA
April 5th 2024

RICHMOND – The days leading up to the Chariho budget referendum have been filled with drama – even more drama than the usual squabbling that has surrounded school budgets for the past several years.

Voters in Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton will decide on April 9 whether the district’s Fiscal Year 2024-25 proposed budget, which contains a 1.49% increase, will pass. If it doesn’t, the district will be level-funded.

Adding to the anxiety, there will be a second referendum, on May 7, on a bond of up to $150 million to consolidate the district’s elementary schools into three new buildings, replacing four aging schools.

Hope Valley Elementary School

The proposed school consolidation plan calls for the eventual closure of Hope Valley School, the second elementary school in Hopkinton. Richmond and Charlestown each have one elementary school.

Chariho Superintendent of Schools Gina Picard has closed kindergarten enrolment at Hope Valley School this fall, the first step in closing the school.

The probable school closing has angered some Hope Valley residents who are fighting to keep it open. They have formed a group, which has been holding unadvertised meetings in a local church.

The Signs and the Lawsuit

Yellow signs, reading “Save Hope Valley School” have been appearing on residents’ lawns. More recently, red stickers, reading “vote no,” have been slapped onto the yellow signs.

It is not clear which entities are behind which signs, but the addition of the red, “vote no” stickers presumably asks voters to reject the budget. If the budget is rejected, and the district is level-funded, the Chariho administration has stated on several occasions that Hope Valley School would be shuttered completely.

Jessica Purcell lives in Hope Valley and represents Richmond on the School Committee. She said many residents had told her that they had found the red stickers confusing.

“I talked to a couple of friends I know on Main Street who have the yellow signs, and they said they didn’t know that the stickers would be placed there,” she said. “They were upset that had been placed there. They were confused they’d been placed there. They don’t know who put them there.”

Last week, some Hope Valley parents said they were contacted, at their homes, by Sylvia Thompson, who asked them to fill out forms with the names of their children who would be affected by the closing of Hope Valley Elementary School.

One resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was told she could get a yellow “Save Hope Valley School” lawn sign at URE Outfitters and that Sylvia Thompson was the main point of contact.

School Committee Chair Catherine Giusti said she was concerned that someone had given Thompson the names and addresses of Hope Valley students.

“The people who provided the signs want to raise money to keep Hope Valley [school] open, seemingly forever,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “Sylvia Thompson, a former Hopkinton Town Councilor, was given the names and addresses of Hope Valley Elementary students to try and have them join the lawsuit. I’m not sure who gave her the list of children’s names, but it seems like an invasion of privacy to me.”

Reached Friday, Thompson said “I don’t have any comment.”

The Plan

The “Save Hope Valley School” signs and the “Vote No” stickers may appear to contradict each other, but the red stickers reveal the group’s ultimate goal. If the Chariho budget and then, the bond, are defeated, Hope Valley School will close and it is at that time that the group would take legal action.

The lawsuit would sue the district for violating Section 13 of the Chariho Act, which states that children who enter kindergarten “will be assured of matriculation at that school through grade 4 unless the family relocates outside the elementary school attendance district.”

Chariho Superintendent of Schools Gina Picard said Chariho attorney Jon Anderson had advised her that the lawsuit would be without merit, because no children would have been enrolled in kindergarten in the first place.

“If we stop enrolling, then there’s no enrollment. We’re no longer enrolling kindergarten. It’s a grades 1 to 4 school,” Picard stated.

The form also asks parents to donate to a “legal defense” fund and send their donations to Westerly attorney Kelly Fracassa.

“What I have been hired to do it to oppose the closing of the Hope Valley Elementary because it violates Section 13-1 of the Chariho Act,” Fracassa said. “I think it provides to the effect that if a student enters in kindergarten, he will be assured of matriculation to 4th grade, and also, if they have a sibling in that school, that sibling will be assured matriculation, so, just closing the school down is going to violate that provision, however, it’s not as simple as that. The parents and the students, in order to obtain an injunction, have to show irreparable harm. “… Plus, you have to balance the equities.  In other words, you balance the harm done to the students with whatever harm may befall the school district by not able to close Hope Valley Elementary.

Fracassa said he was only beginning to research the case.

“Right now, I’m just gathering information to support the case, and I don’t know when they hold the vote on it, but right now, there’s actually no case yet,” he said. “… Something like that is going to require not only testimony from the parents, but it’s probably going to require some type of expert testimony, and right now, I don’t know if it exists. I don’t know what that harm is, so I have to consult with experts to find out even if there is that kind of harm.”

Giusti said it appeared to her that voters did not understand the budget process.

“Defeating the budget sends a message to the School Committee that the budget is too high, thus forcing us to make more reductions,” she said. “I don’t know where those reductions will come from, though closing another grade at Hope Valley Elementary next year is a possibility. The people behind the “Save Hope Valley Elementary” group don’t appear to know how the budget process works, which is surprising. Voting no on April 9th will not save Hope Valley Elementary School.”

Purcell bemoaned the current turmoil in the school district.

“There’s a lot of undermining going on, right?” she said. “The Save Hope Valley School undermines the work that the School Committee did to find the right path forward for the district to balance the needs of all stakeholders, but then, I know that also, those families feel undermined who are facing the reality of a school closing. And then, people who don’t want you to support the budget, also don’t want you to save a school, but they don’t want to say that. It’s a mess.”