Wicked Local FRANKLIN -- When school officials took up the question more than a year ago about whether the time has come to retire the Davis Thayer School, they knew they were taking on a question charged with emotion. In the end, they could not ignore the writing on the chalk board when faced with the facts: Shrinking enrollment, stretched budgets, and the challenges of meeting modern educational standards in an aging, expensive-to-maintain building that in just three years will turn 100. With a modicum of discussion, and an air of resignation, the School Committee on Tuesday voted 5-2 to shutter the town's oldest school building after this school year and re-assign its students to the Helen Keller Elementary School two miles away on Lincoln Street. The one hang-up for the two members who voted against the decision was the timing of the closing.