[N]ailing jello to the wall. That is how Teri Geney described six months of Act 46 study committee discussions in Grand Isle County.
“I’ve read that managing change is like nailing jello to the wall. That’s a good picture of what the Act 46 Study Committee has been trying to do these last few months,” she wrote in her March 16 blog post.
Communities in Grand Isle County began exploring their options under Act 46 last August. They more recently formed a formal 706B study committee and are preparing articles of agreement and a merger proposal to take to the State Board of Education. If all goes well, they hope to put a plan to the voters on Nov. 8. (map of VSBA study committees)
“It really has been like trying to nail jello to the wall,” said Geney, a Grand Isle member of the committee. “You think you have it pinned down and it blobs out over here, then you think you have it pinned down over here and it drips down, but we are getting there I think.”
The study committee has representatives from five communities living in four island towns and on a peninsula that is attached to Canada. The county is surrounded by water and it is a decent drive from south to north. The economy is also diverse from South Hero, where there is little poverty, to Alburgh, where there is much more, according to chair of the study committee Andrew Julow, of North Hero.
“A lot of the towns in Vermont, when they think about partnerships that make sense are looking at a 360-degree circle, but we only have north to south to look at,” he said.
Geography is only one consideration; there is also a lot of history tied up in and among the islands, according to Julow. “There’s a much longer history of making rude gestures across the lake at each other than there is in trying to work together,” said Julow. “ To make this go, we’ve had to keep it light and move at a pace that all communities are comfortable with: slow. Teri’s done a great job of sharing our progress – and lack of progress – with the community in a way that is both entertaining and representative of the effort,” he said.
Geney said that history rears its head often. “If we can have meetings with 18 of us in the same room without bringing up the bad reffing in the basketball game of 1986 that’s a success. There is a tension between towns… and everyone thinks their town and their school is the best. I think humor diffuses that a little bit too. Let’s admit that it’s there and let’s move beyond it and do what is best for the kids,” she said.
To date, the areas of Vermont that have successfully merged school systems have been working together or have been discussing merging for several years. That has not been the case in Grand Isle, where these conversations are new and sometimes emotional, according to Superintendent Barbara Burrington.
Even under the threat of losing their small schools grants and extra funding for phantom students, they say that their schools reflect their values and they don’t want to change. These communities describe themselves as “tight knit” with “rich relationships” that teach “reciprocity and empathy,” according to Burrington. “To have those conversations and imagine themselves in a new way even though for them the disincentives are great, the use of humor helps to ameliorate some of that difficulty, that tenderness,” she said.
Part of the reason Act 46 has been unpopular is because three of Grand Isle’s towns operate schools for grades preK-8 and then offer choice and two — North Hero and Isle La Motte– operate preK-6 then choice and according to Act 46. In most of the new governance options proposed by the study committee, at least one school district would have to change.
“Our Act 46 committee is really striving to have a difficult conversation across all five communities and maintain not only civility but their humor and dignity. It is very easy to get emotional about some of these situations because our structure is very complicated and the county is very diverse,” said Burrington who likes the tone that Geney uses in the blog and in presentations.
It has been important to committee representatives from Isle La Motte and North Hero to keep their schools that operate grades preK-6. Representatives from Alburgh and South Hero haven’t yet settled on the best grade structure. Grand Isle’s representatives are most interested in giving middle school students more opportunities. The study committee has settled on a proposed union school district that would operate preK-6 grade and offer school choice from 7-12. Voters in Grand Isle, Isle La Motte and North Hero will have to agree to the plan for it to move forward. Alburgh and South Hero will put it to a vote but if the towns vote it down the school district can still be formed with the other three communities.
Geney said that she is amazed that the representatives from the five towns, all with different personalities, have been able to come together on a cohesive plan. “The committee is really focused on what is best for the kids of the whole county even if it means one town has to give a little.”
Julow said they have been successful because they have been honest and didn’t try to gloss over challenges. “We put them out there and we were upfront with people: here are the challenges and here is how we are trying to overcome them.”
Information has been key, according to Geney, who happens to be a marketing professional, but had never blogged before. She said she has focused more on having a conversational tone than on humor. “This is a very complicated subject. I try to simplify it and make it palatable for someone who doesn’t sit in the meetings and doesn’t need to know every detail. The humor piece just comes.”
But Julow says a sense of humor definitely helps. “We’ve had our tense moments here and there, but overall this group has gotten along well and we’ve used our share of humor and self depreciation to push us through.”
