PLAINFIELD — A study committee created with Cornish and Plainfield voters’ approval last March will present its recommendations about combining the two towns’ middle schools at a joint school board meeting Tuesday night.

The committee has been studying the benefits, drawbacks and logistics of merging Cornish and Plainfield students in grades 6 through 8 into a single building in Plainfield.

Depending on the committee’s conclusions, both boards will decide whether to bring the middle school merger to voters in March, Sydney Leggett, superintendent of both the Cornish and Plainfield school districts, said last week.

Cornish Elementary School serves about 135 students in grades pre-K through 8. Tuition agreements allow Cornish students to attend high school in Windsor, Hartford or Claremont. Plainfield’s K-8 school serves about 199 students and the school district has a tuition agreement with Lebanon High School.

If voters were to approve a shared middle school, Leggett said, students in grades 6 through 8 from both towns would attend Plainfield Middle School. Plainfield would then need to “decide if they’re going to add space, which they would do partially through a grant and then partially through a bond,” she said.

If a proposal to merge the two middle schools goes before voters, the districts would hold public forums in December and January to present the proposal and answer questions, Leggett said.

As the middle school merger study moves forward, the schools also have two other studies underway, both in preliminary stages.

A study Cornish and Plainfield voters approved last March to look into the feasibility of merging the two school districts is ongoing. There will not be any action on that issue this March, Leggett said, because the committee is still working. The middle schools could merge without a district merger, and vice-versa.

Separate from the middle school and district merger discussions, Cornish is conducting a facilities assessment of its elementary school building and grounds. “Everybody knows that the building has needs,” Leggett said, including a lack of potable water. The study will help the district determine how to move forward.

The joint Cornish-Plainfield school board meeting to hear and discuss the middle school study is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 5:30 p.m. at the Plainfield Elementary School and on Zoom. The meeting agenda and Zoom link may be found on the Plainfield School District website at tinyurl.com/245fl2ch

Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.