SHARON — The School Board is seeking community input on a potential renovation and addition to Sharon Elementary School.

At its meeting on Tuesday, the three-member board will vote on whether to form a committee of residents and other community stakeholders to consider options for the elementary school, which educates more than 150 children in kindergarten through sixth grade.

“We’re going to try to see who’s interested and then formulate it from there,” said Donald Shaw, chairman of the Sharon School Board. “We’re hoping there will be a lot of public interest.”

The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Sharon Elementary School. It can also be streamed online via sharonelementary.org.

The board began discussing a school expansion project last spring, said Jamie Kinnarney, superintendent of the White River Valley Supervisory Union, which includes Sharon. Sharon’s two pre-K classes are in temporary structures “that are really past their life expectancy,” Kinnarney said, and board members started to consider a remedy.

The temporary classrooms, which resemble trailers and are not attached to the main school, have been up for nine years and were expected to last about a decade. The buildings also are where students meet with a physical therapist, an occupational therapist and a speech pathologist.

The school currently has one class and one classroom per grade; an influx of students in a particular grade would cause logistical problems.

“I don’t have a vacant classroom where I could do that,” Kinnarney said, adding that if that were to happen, the art and music teachers — who share a classroom — would be displaced and have to use carts instead.

Kinnarney stressed that a potential need for added space isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

“As a lot of Vermont schools have seen declining enrollment, Sharon Elementary’s enrollment has actually increased over the last six years,” he said.

In 2012, 110 students attended Sharon Elementary School, according to data from the Vermont Agency of Education. In 2022, there were 156 students; the high of the last decade was162 students in 2016. That variability factors into the School Board’s concern.

“We’re an increasing population of students. That’s partly due to the early education that we offer as well as we’re a sending school, a tuition school, so people have a choice of where their secondary students can go for their education, and that’s attractive to a lot of people,” Shaw said. “The downside of that is we have little control over the secondary tuition, so that’s a challenge going into budget season.”

Construction on Sharon Elementary School started in September 1988 and was completed in June 1989. The school opened for students two months later, according to a report from the superintendent of schools at that time.

In the ensuing years, the school as added energy-efficient lighting, a parking lot and a pellet-powered boiler, Shaw said, but there has not been an expansion or permanent addition.

Representatives from Energy Efficient Investments, a Merrimack, N.H.-based energy management company, and Banwell Architects in Lebanon gave a presentation during an October school board meeting about the potential addition, which could include around four classrooms in addition to space for physical and occupational therapists.

Shaw and Kinnarney stressed that the discussion is in its preliminary stages and that it is too soon to estimate how much an addition would cost.

The earliest a proposal or bond vote would come before voters is fall 2023, Kinnarney said.

“We’ve had feedback that is encouraging folks to really keep a sharp pencil — so to speak — pay attention to the budget and try to maintain a realistic number rather than a get-everything-you-want type of deal,” Shaw said.

Regardless, if the School Board decides to go forward with an addition, something will need to be done about the temporary classrooms. Kinnarney said the structures would be OK for the 2023-24 school year, but after that it is questionable.

“The biggest issue is just normal wear and tear on them,” he said. “They’re made to be temporary classrooms. They’re not made to withstand multiple years of wear and tear.”

The roofs need work and the heating needs to be upgraded, in addition to other issues, Shaw said.

“There’s some upgrades that are quite costly, and we quite frankly would rather put the money into a new footprint rather than put a Band-Aid on the old one.”

Editor’s note: Community members interested in joining the committee should email sharon-board@wrvsu.org.

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.

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