The Dresden School District, which includes Hanover and Norwich residents, voted on March 5 in favor of a controversial proposal to sell Hanover High School's current Lebanon Street location to Dartmouth College. The thirteen-vote margin, out of a healthy 3,700 voter turnout, came after a Hanover resident called for a recount.
The less than one percent majority revealed the concerns of many Hanover residents about the plans to move the middle and high school campuses to a 61-acre plot of land on Reservoir Road owned by Dartmouth.
District Superintendent Ken Greenbaum cited the $18.7 million given by the College to the school district under the plan as a major reason for the proposal's success.
While the proposal does not ensure that the schools will move, the "generous" amount of Dartmouth money makes the offer more attractive to taxpayers, Greenbaum and others said.
Before Dartmouth purchases the current Lebanon Street property, Hanover and Norwich taxpayers will have to pass a bond in order to pay for the construction of the new schools. Neither school board members or administrators in the Superintendent's office were willing to speculate on how large that bond would need to be or how it would effect taxes in the Dresden district.
While Dresden School Board members such as former chair Anne Segal favor the land swap, community and parent opinions are mixed. Eleven-year Hanover resident Hilary Pridgen, a parent of five children in the Hanover school system, voted against the proposal with the hope that the school board will "look into the viability of keeping the high school where it is."
Pridgen fought successfully to get a renovation proposal for the downtown site put on the March 5 ballot, which won by a more than a two-to-one margin.
"I interpret [the election results] to mean that people are willing to look at all the alternatives," Pridgen said. "The high school is a very important part of Hanover ... [losing it] would change the whole atmosphere of downtown."
"The school board is in a tremendous rush to get a fancy building, but I think Hanover people lose a lot no matter how fancy the school is ... education is more than just the book learning and having the kids mingle in the community is incredibly valuable," Pridgen said.
Other Hanover High parents, including Eleanor Shannon '79, said that increased traffic due to having the new schools farther out of town would be a major problem.
"I wonder if I should give in, sell my house to Dartmouth and move away," Shannon said of her worries concerning the College's expansion into the residential areas of Hanover.
Shannon and others mentioned that Hanover and Norwich voters had differing opinions concerning the proposes relocation. "If we sell the land, Norwich residents don't lose anything, but [Hanover people] don't have a situation were our kids can walk to school anymore," Shannon said. She also raised the difference in tax structure between Vermont and New Hampshire as a reason why Norwich residents were more likely to vote for the proposal.
"We have a more economically developed town, so our tax base is basically going to be subsidizing the Norwich people," Shannon said.
She said she was dismayed at the possibility of the College owning all the land between Main Street and the Co-op grocery store on both sides of Lebanon Street, which would be the case if the land swap takes place.
"This is a major turning point, and it feels like the Hanover people are being pressured to ... turn over the character of our town to the College," said Shannon, who moved back to Hanover ten years ago.
At a meeting tomorrow night at Hanover High, school board and community members will discuss concerns, costs and alternatives such as moving the middle school to a piece of Dartmouth-donated property on Lyme Road.
"I think a lot of people don't want to make any decision until they get more information, such as the cost of renovations and what the new schools would look like," said Segal.
At the same time, people on both sides of the land swap issue agree that the current middle and high schools are not up to standard, with heating, ventilation, handicap access and asbestos problems.
