High Point approves agreement with Montague schools

The High Point Regional School District Board of Education on Nov. 22 approved a new send-receive agreement with the Montague Township School District, which will allow Montague students to continue attending High Point after the current agreement expires at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

The new agreement will expire at the end of the 2033-34 school year.

“I would just like to say thank you to both board presidents and administration for making this happen and be successful,” Board of Education member LeeAnn Smith said. “Montague has a special place in my heart and always will, so I’m glad to see this continuing.”

High Point Superintendent Scott Ripley said the agreement with Montague schools has taken 12 years of work to put in to not only forge the original agreement, but to negotiate a second contract. He said this second contract is the “institutionalization of the relationship.”

“It’s something I’ve been intimately involved with all these years,” Ripley said. “It’s something I truly believed would strengthen High Point and be a blessing to have Montague and High Point together. We believe that Montague students have benefited and thrived here, and it’s a relationship that I’m hopeful will continue to transcend into the next decade and beyond. It has not come easily.”

Montague Board of Education President Barbara Holstein thanked the High Point school board for passing the agreement. The Montague school board is expected to vote on the agreement on Dec. 14.

“I’m really happy to be here tonight,” Holstein said on Nov. 22. “I’m happy that this is taking place.”