GEORGETOWN – The school district, suffering a declining student enrollment and a growing group of disgruntled parents, is considering several options including having Georgetown High School (GHS) students join a regional district.
The school board and Supt. Dr. Margo Ferrick have scheduled a series of listening sessions, The Future of GHS – A Community Conversation, for parents to voice their concerns and ideas to fix challenges in the schools.
A group of concerned parents wrote the school asking the board and superintendent to issue a Request for Proposal by Sept. 30 for a feasibility study evaluating a possible school closure, regionalization or joining another school district. The parents proposed that the study should be completed by the end of January.
The message from Supt. Dr. Margo Ferrick to the parents read: “Community members are expressing a sense of urgency around this due to the low ninth-grade enrollment numbers. I have been exploring and researching multiple options including redesigning GHS, tuition agreements with neighboring districts and creating a new regionalization. It is time to invite the community into the conversation.”
The current enrollment in Grade 9 is 32; Grade 10 is 66; Grade 11 is 61, and Grade 12 is 70 for a total of 229. A decade ago, Georgetown High had 404 students. According to the letter from the parents, the freshmen class enrollment fell 60 percent in one year, 77 students in FY25 to 31 in FY26.
The listening sessions began this week and will continue on Sept. 30, Oct. 15 and 23.
The district also sent out a survey to parents, asking their thoughts on regionalization. One question asked whether they wanted the district to remain independent.
Another question was, “How important is it to you that Georgetown students have access to strong academic programs, sports and extracurricular opportunities, even if that means partnering with other districts?”
The survey outlined the choices the schools face.
Which of the following options do you believe Georgetown should prioritize exploring?
Maintaining and redesigning Georgetown High School
Full Closure and regionalization with a neighboring district (K-12)
Partial Regionalization (6-12), keeping the elementary school as a Georgetown school.
Entering a Tuition Agreement – (grades 9-12 would attend another district’s high schools and GPS would maintain elementary and middle schools)
The letter from the concerned parents read: “The situation is urgent. If we do not act now, doors will close that we may never be able to open again, and our children will be left behind.”
Among the regionalization options would be to join Masconomet Regional School District, which serves the towns of Boxford, Middleton and Topsfield. Masconomet has an enrollment of 562 students in its middle school and 955 students in the high school.
Triton, which serves Newbury, Rowley and Salisbury, has 127 students in its ninth grade. But the district is well along in the process of redesigning its 50-year-old high school and middle school with the Massachusetts School Building Assn. at its current enrollment levels.
Georgetown this year approved a $6 million tax override largely because it provided more funds for the schools.
“The 2025 override was essential to keep basic operations intact, but it cannot solve this enrollment crisis,” the parents letter stated. “This challenge is about budgets and sustainability but it is also bigger than this—it is about whether Georgetown children will have the same chances to thrive as those in surrounding communities and it is about a school system that is suffering rather than thriving.”
The listening sessions are scheduled for 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. Sept. 30 at the Perley School, third floor; 6 to 7 p.m. Oct. 15 at the high school auditorium and from 11 a.m. to noon on Oct. 23 at the Perley School, third floor. ♦
