(This story by Chris Mays was published in the Brattleboro Reformer on June 2, 2017.)
DEERFIELD VALLEY — All but one community voting Wednesday on school district mergers in the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union approved of the plans set forth by study committees.
“Good job, everyone!” Windham Southwest Superintendent Chris Pratt wrote to school officials and members of the media. “It has passed in all of the districts except for Stamford.”
In the email, he thanked all the school boards and Windham Southwest Business Administrator Karen Atwood for all their “hard work over the past few years.”
“It was a long journey, but we did it,” Pratt wrote. “It just goes to show what can be done when we all work together.”
Twin Valley will now be a “unified union district” under Act 46, the state law aimed at addressing student inequities and declining enrollment with an eye on containing costs to the taxpayer.
Whitingham’s results were the first of the six tallies to come in Wednesday. Residents in the school district approved of the merger with Wilmington in a 79-10 vote. Wilmington also supported the merger, in a 90-13 vote.
That wasn’t much of a surprise. Those two districts had already consolidated schools and were planning to make a union high school before Act 46 was enacted in 2015.
But the ability of those two districts to get tax incentives and benefits offered under the law hinged on the decisions of the other supervisory union members on Wednesday. At least two of the other three districts needed to approve of their merger, which they did.
While Stamford overwhelmingly rejected the formation of a “unified union district” with Halifax and Readsboro in a 173-3 vote, Halifax had approved of it in a 114-11 vote and Readsboro approved in a 81-71 vote. So, Halifax and Readsboro will be forming a new district come Nov. 1.
“I wasn’t surprised with Stamford,” Pratt said. “I wasn’t even surprised with each margin. I was surprised overall that it was passed by all the others.”
There’s talk of Stamford considering a merger with a district in Clarksburg, Massachusetts. Pratt does not anticipate a revote in Stamford.
“I think it was too much of a landslide of no,” he said. “It’s my understanding that they’re exploring possibilities of an interstate agreement with Clarksburg.”
If nothing is approved by the state and community in Stamford by Nov. 1, the district will be disqualified from small schools grants and a “hold-harmless provision” that keeps communities from being penalized for rising education costs if there’s a sudden drop in population.
Stamford will also lose the ability to receive Act 46 incentive that drops 8 cents, 6 cents, 4 cents then 2 cents off school tax rates over the next four years.The other Windham Southwest districts are set to receive or retain these benefits.
With the way tax rates jumped in the Twin Valley towns this year, Pratt didn’t know how the vote would fare in Whitingham. The Select Board there is exploring litigation options against the state for penalties they deem unfair to rural communities.
Pratt expects the new boards to start meeting within six weeks; officers were elected to two new boards on Wednesday. He admitted a lot of work was still ahead as the districts start the transition process.
“But I know we can do it,” he wrote in the email. “WSWSU school districts have a lot to offer the students in our area and we will continue to do so. This vote will allow us to continue to find ways to provide our students with the great education they receive in all of our schools.”
School board and community members involved in the process let out “a big sigh of relief” once the tallies were in, Pratt told the Reformer.
“I feel the boards did a great job being transparent in regards to reasons why — what we have to gain and lose,” he said. “For Twin Valley, this was a natural progression. It’s what we were going to do anyways.”
Pratt has been looking at the Twin Valley merger in terms of relationships: Whitingham and Wilmington were dating, then they were engaged.
“Now it’s time to tie the knot,” he said. “They were going to do this regardless of whether Act 46 was in place or not. I think the public trusted them. I think all the boards did their due diligence. We’re doing everything we can to keep our small schools open and give kids a great education. This gives us more time to do that.”
