BEALS — Residents at a special budget meeting Tuesday approved a $1.6 million budget for Beals Elementary School for 2026-27.
The budget exceeds the state’s Essential Programs and Services funding model by $892,210.
By written ballot, residents voted 39-17 in favor of raising the amount through local taxes.
The school that serves prekindergarten through eighth grade now has 28 Beals students and 16 students from other towns, for a total of 42. Enrollment has declined steadily over the past 30 years.
Christopher Crowley, who attended Beals Elementary School and returned as a teacher after college, now serves as the school’s principal. He said the building could comfortably educate about 80 children.
“The building was designed for 100, 110 kids. It was very crammed though,” Crowley said. “When I first started teaching here, to have 25, 28 kids in one room, it was pretty much crammed from corner to corner.”
He said he does not expect enrollment to return to those numbers.
“Even when I was a kid growing up, there were families that had seven, eight, nine kids,” Crowley said. “You don’t see that anymore. People don’t stay here. People are moving away. A lot of my classmates have moved out of state.”
There is some reluctance in town to give up its elementary school, despite the high cost to taxpayers.
When asked if school officials had considered alternatives to funding an independent Beals Elementary School, Mariner Bunker, chair of the Beals Elementary School Board, said: “No. If you lose your school, you have nothing. I mean, that’s the only thing we have. Any kind of identity is our school. So, we aren’t considering alternatives.
“If we’re forced into it, the town would have to vote on it, and they could decide to do it. But right now, I think we have enough support to keep the school open for a while.”
