Editor’s note: This article is by Derek Carson, of the Bennington Banner, in which it was first published Oct. 21, 2015.
NORTH BENNINGTON — At a meeting last week, local officials discussed the impact of Act 46, the new education reform law, on the North Bennington School District.
Board member Matthew Patterson recommended that the committee form an ad hoc group to discuss North Bennington’s options under new school district merger requirements.
The law incentivizes districts to form larger educational units with 900 or more students.
The district, Patterson said, needs to begin looking at possible “dance partners.”
“The legislation has a consideration for every type of district except ours, in the whole state,” Patterson said. “So a lot of what it offers to us doesn’t apply to us, even though (the law) does apply to us and we have to do something.”
The North Bennington School District is a public school district that does not operate a school. Instead, it tuitions out its students to other schools for grades pre-K through six, then the students attend the Mount Anthony Union School District for middle and high school. Most elementary school students attend the independent Village School of North Bennington, while some attend Shaftsbury Elementary, the Hiland Hall School, or the Southshire Community School.
Patterson said the committee should discuss merger options with a number of districts to the north that have reached out to North Bennington. Goshen, for example, which is currently part of the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union, operates in a manner similar to North Bennington, and could be a possible partner.
“All of this is going to involve a community vote,” he said, “and so the community needs to be educated about what it means. We can all sit at these meetings and talk about what we think we should do, but if we don’t have a committee, and a group of people that is really including the community, as we know, no matter how many public meetings one has, you still have a lot of misinformation.”
One danger is that North Bennington could lose school choice if its residents vote to join with a district that operates its own elementary school, such as Arlington. However, Patterson said, there is also an opportunity to expand choice at the middle and high school level, depending on what options are available.
North Bennington excluded from school lunch program
Ray Mullineaux, chair of the North Bennington Prudential Committee, raised questions about the exclusion of Village School students from the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union free lunch program.
“Despite letters to the contrary on the website that all students in the SU were able to access this, it turns out that a certain group of students are not able to avail themselves to this, and they all happen to go to the Village School of North Bennington,” Mullineaux said.
North Bennington is not in the same Local School Food Authority as the rest of the supervisory union. Mullineaux argued that the district is in the same Local Education Agency, which should make the school eligible to participate.
“The people who designed this system really didn’t, once again, consider a situation such as ours,” said Patterson, “We are our own food authority because we were told, when we went independent, that we had to, and that’s why we built a kitchen, at great expense. When we were public, Shaftsbury was preparing the meals, in Shaftsbury, and delivering them here, and we were told by the SU that that wouldn’t be allowed.”
Patterson pointed out that another non-public school, the Catholic School of Sacred Heart St. Francis de Sales, is eligible to participate in the program. “What’s interesting, is their food is being produced at the middle school, and shipped to their school, much as we had hoped would be done with Shaftsbury,” he said.
Patterson said the situation has created an inequity that could influence school choice decisions against the Village School. “Should they choose to go to Shaftsbury, which they have the choice to do, they get free food. They can even go to Sacred Heart and get free meals. They can go to MAU, in the sixth grade capacity. But if they choose to go here, they can’t,” said Patterson.
