Editor’s note: This commentary is by Cynthia Davis-Lubas, who is an amateur photographer and writer from Cabot.
[A]ct 46 has finally been signed into law and with it comes the light at the end of the tunnel for many overburdened taxpayers. Inflated school budgets have long left residents seeking relief for years from their ever-rising education property taxes.
While many seem to be applauding the signing of this law, there are still some concerned that towns will collapse. This was concerning to me also so I did a little research. My findings concluded what I already suspected, that suggestion is just absolute nonsense!
A brief walk through Vermont history will quickly show how the classic agrarian landscape we see today began with villages built around churches and meeting houses. The town school was not the center of a community and still is not to most of Vermont’s thriving small towns.
When using Cabot as an example of one of the newly doomed towns making the hit list of consolidation, I would argue there are many strong towns in Vermont, and we need not look further than right out Cabot’s backdoor to find them. Neighboring towns, such as Walden, Plainfield, Peacham (designated best village in New England, Yankee Magazine, Sept. 2005), East Montpelier and Marshfield have thriving town centers with just as much as, if not more than, Cabot. None of these, extraordinary small town communities, has a high school to call its own and some even share elementary schools.
Cabot has become one of the most expensive schools in the state. With per pupil spending reaching over $17,000.00, one might imagine our students would be housed all day in gleaming new buildings, offered a diversified amount of programs and have the best educators money can buy. Unfortunately, this isn’t even close to its reality. Instead, students are offered quite the contrary. The buildings are in shambles and often present health and safety concerns to the children; they no longer offer any elective programs; barely offer any art programs; tried to do away with the elementary music programs (thankfully, the state intervened on that one for us); have a very limited curriculum for high school students; has seen much turnover in staff and students throughout the past few years; and, because of budget constraints, is very limited when it comes to choosing well-seasoned educators.
The school can barely offer a fraction of the programs that our surrounding schools are offering to their students but yet it wants to build a champagne building with its beer pocketbook.
Over the years, because of a poor administration, many students have been taken out of Cabot school by their parents to be either home-schooled or placed in private schools. Many of these parents reached out to the school board in an effort to prevent the dwindling numbers. The school board ignored numerous letters and complaints that could have possibly prevented the mass exodus and instead voted unanimously to renew the contract of the principal who began the downward spiral of student numbers.
Not one member was willing to represent the concerned residents who saw these troubles coming. After waiting another year, all while
losing even more students, did they finally send out surveys to parents. Those surveys were returned with such poor results, the board had no option but to address the issue that had plagued the school for years. Unfortunately, it was just too late and the school has yet to recover many of those students. Research, including contacting all surrounding area schools, shows this has never happened in another community.
On the very day Act 46 was signed into law, this same school board held a meeting to let the public know of is plans to build a new facility that would come with a hefty price tag funded with a property tax increase of anywhere from 18 percent to 30 percent, The plans were extravagant and wasted space was everywhere. Considering we seem to average a graduating class of about 10 students each year, this was once again a clear indication that not only does this school board not show any fiscal responsibility, it also seems to be lacking in problem-solving skills, as well as common sense.
The school can barely offer a fraction of the programs that our surrounding schools are offering to their students but yet it wants to build a champagne building with its beer pocketbook. How many more programs will we have to cut to swing these elaborate plans?
Community goes far beyond a school. Community is about taking a moment to think about how our elderly neighbors will have to choose between paying their skyrocketing property taxes and purchasing much needed medications; how the, financially pressed family of four will have to choose between paying the electric bill and paying property taxes; or how the hardworking farmer will afford to meet the demands of upgrading to modern technologies on his farm while meeting increased property taxes at the same time.
This antiquated notion, of schools keeping small towns alive, is going to need more than a simple say of such to persuade the savvy taxpayer to its validity. It is high time we stop throwing money at our problems because, to put it simply, it is just not working. And, to suggest that Cabot, as a town, will collapse because the school closes, all while we cringe at the postings of hypodermic needles found all along the sidewalks of our main street (as mentioned on the Facebook page Cabot Connects), well, that just sounds plain-out silly.
