Editor’s note: This commentary is by Judy Normandeau, a Dummerston resident since 1970, who has been an involved citizen in her area’s local Act 46 process since the beginning. She is a past school board member and chair. Her two sons attended Dummerston School, where her two granddaughters are not students.
[W]OW – so many news articles recently, all slanted by administration and top state officials. There are a lot of other views to this school merging issue but unfortunately citizens do not have the same clout.
There are so many issues with these articles that I can’t begin to address them all, so I will try to address some important ones.
1 – Stephan Morse is the cheerleader for merger and as chair of the State Board of Education is deaf to other views. His comments that merger is a HUGE success are way overstated. Yes, many districts have merged. Most of those districts have been talking merger for many years and now have taken advantage of promised state money (our tax money). Most of these early mergers are in larger areas where merging is not big deal. There are many more districts that have voted “no,” disbanded their study committees or not even formed a study committee. These are in areas where merging generally doesn’t make educational or economic sense to their residents. Additionally those who tout consolidation do not tell you that these merged districts are not seeing the promised savings.
2 – There is no exit strategy if we merge. Once in, it is next to impossible to leave. The process is onerous as we have seen in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union. It remains to be seen if other towns will vote to let Vernon leave in order to preserve its school choice. It also remains to be seen what financial effect Vernon’s leaving will have on the rest of the towns. We should look to Maine which voted a few years ago to consolidate. Many towns in Maine are now in the process of trying to “unmerge.” One of their big problems is they no longer own their schools. The schools were turned over to the larger district the same as ours will be if we merge.
3 – We are told that merging will “simplify governance.” Yes, we in WSESU will have one school board of nine members, heavily weighted to Brattleboro. These nine members will supposedly be operating eight or nine schools that took almost 30 school board members to run. These nine members will only be “yes” people to an increasing administration. If the state really wanted to simplify governance they would have combined superintendents. That is where the big money is, not local school boards. Actually that was the original plan but the superintendents lobby is very strong and the Legislature chose merging districts instead.
If the state really wanted to simplify governance they would have combined superintendents. That is where the big money is, not local school boards.
4 – We are being promised things that we either already have or could easily have now if we as a group would work together. We do not need to merge. For example, schools have been sharing teachers for years. This is nothing new. We also share a common curriculum already. WSESU has been a top supervisory union in the state and has worked well for decades. Not anymore since the passage of Act 46.
5 – I find it disheartening that one of these press articles only quotes one Dummerston resident at the meeting where there were 40 residents attending and more than half of them had comments and concerns. On top of it, I do not believe that the reporter was even in attendance.
6 – Three really big issues in WSESU’s proposed articles of agreement are board makeup, closing of schools and possible relocation of grades to operate, especially seventh and eighth grades of two of the supervisory union’s schools.
The board makeup is heavily weighted to Brattleboro as it has the largest population in the district. There are two proposals for dealing with board makeup. One is proportional, where Brattleboro would get six members and the small towns one each. With this model, each town would vote for its own board members. The other model is the hybrid model. Brattleboro would get three members with smaller towns getting one each. There then would be three members at large and they could conceivably be from any town. However, with Brattleboro’s having the majority of voters, they would likely be from Brattleboro. In the hybrid model, all nine of the board members would be voted on by everyone and the votes would be commingled and then counted. Towns would not know how their town voted. Once again Brattleboro would control who got elected.
As to closing of schools, the articles say that the “superboard” could close a school. Towns would not have a vote. Schools would not be closed for five years but towns would not have any say after that five-year period. This is a huge concern as towns would not have any control over whether or not their school would close.
As the articles stand now, a town would also not have any control over which grades would be operated in their school. The superboard could decide that the middle school is losing too many students so it could require, over our wishes, Putney and Dummerston to send their seventh- and eighth-graders to the middle school. This would not be a town decision but a superboard and administration decision.
I would strongly encourage everyone to watch the study committee videos on BCTV and get educated as to all of the ramifications of these school merger plans. The Act 46 law allows for other options. In our area there is a group of citizens working on alternate proposals. Many other areas in the state are doing the same. If enough districts come up with plans that work better for the students and the taxpayers in their area than this heavy handed, top-down plan by the state and unelected state board officials, I firmly believe we can still retain control over our local good schools. We need to stand up and work together.
