[L]ONDONDERRY — After months of study and many hours of debate, the Northshire merger study committee has voted to pursue a regional school union joining nine town districts under a single board.
The committee voted unanimously Monday at Flood Brook School to approve the merger concept — the details of which will be further refined in a report to the state Agency of Education.
A draft agreement will be reviewed again for possible clarifying revisions by a four-person subcommittee working with consultant Daniel French, the former Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union superintendent. The Education Agency, which also could suggest revisions, would then send the plan to the state board with a recommendation.
“For a committee of this size (17 members), that represents a variety of communities, to vote unanimously is a testament to its confidence in our proposed merger,” committee Chairman Jon Wilson said in a news release Monday. “The committee has tirelessly explored every imaginable benefit and implication of merging. While this has been an exhausting process, we have the peace of mind that it has been a fruitful one.”
The committee, with representation from the nine towns based on population, formed late last year and has met at least 18 times in hammering out details of the proposal. The effort was prompted by Act 46, which encourages consolidation efforts among Vermont school districts.
The Northshire group was the first of four Act 46-related merger committees in Bennington County to reach a consensus on a consolidation plan to forward to the state and ultimately town voters for approval.
Wilson said the committee believes the proposed new governance structure “would lead to sustainable innovation in (the) school system for generations to come.”
If the state board approves the plan, it is expected to go before voters in the nine towns March 7 during annual town meetings. One task of preparing a report will be to create the ballot article that will go before voters.
Also to be elected at the same time are the 13 members of what would be the new regional board. That board would not take over operation of the new district — to be called the Taconic and Green Regional School District — until after a year of transition from the current school boards.
There are five schools at the elementary or elementary-middle school level within the member towns of Manchester, Dorset, Londonderry, Danby, Sunderland, Mount Tabor, Landgrove, Peru and Weston.
According to the proposal, the unified district would form on July 1, but the current school boards would operate the schools and handle their budgets until July 1, 2018, when the newly elected regional board would take over.
The current school districts would cease to exist once the new district is in place in 2018.
The proposal calls for 13 board members, one from each of the nine towns, and four additional board members from the larger districts — Manchester, Dorset, Danby and Londonderry.
All voters in the district would help select board members for each town. Nine members must be residents of the towns they are running to represent. The other four members could live in any of the larger four towns.
French explained Monday how the format for the board and the number of members could be altered if some of the nine towns decide not to participate. Different scenarios are included in the articles of agreement draft, showing regional boards with nine to 13 members, depending on which towns join.
The districts of Manchester, Dorset and the Mountain Towns Regional Education District (consisting of Londonderry, Landgrove, Peru and Weston) are considered necessary communities for the merger to take effect, meaning voters in each town would have to approve the agreement for it to go forward.
The Danby, Sunderland and Mount Tabor town school districts are considered advisable districts, meaning the merger could occur even if those towns reject the plan.
If a community rejects the merger in March, another vote taken prior to July 1 could allow that town to join the new district.
Applause followed a unanimous committee vote Monday to find the merger plan “advisable.” French then led the group through several issues he and the subcommittee will try to further clarify in the final draft.
School choice for students in seventh and eighth grades in Danby, Mount Tabor and Sunderland has been a much-debated issue. Those who now have school choice in those towns to go to other districts would not be allowed that option under Act 46 provisions, because the new unified district would have three schools offering those grades.
The committee appeared in agreement that middle school students in those towns would be allowed to continue at their same middle school under a grandfathering provision.
School choice will still be allowed for students in grades nine through 12.
The option of choosing a particular school within the new district also was discussed. French said those decisions and any policies affecting inter-district choice would have to be the purview of the new regional board. Internal transfers would not be allowed within the first year of operation.
Another agreement provision bars the closure of any school within the first four years of operation under the new union. After that period, a closure would require a 75 percent majority vote of the school board, a public hearing in the affected town and the chance for a nonbinding referendum by voters in that town.
In forming a merged district by July 1, the town property taxpayers would expect to receive a reduced school tax rate for four years, under the provisions of Act 46. In the first year, the reduction would be 8 cents on the school rate, then 6, 4 and 2 cents in the subsequent years.
