Editor’s note: This commentary is by Akara Draper and Linnie Jones, both of Dummerston. Draper is a lifelong community advocate, serves on the Dummerston Cares Inc. board and is a member of the group supporting alternative governance structures. Jones is a licensed social worker, and is a member of the group supporting alternative governance structures.
[T]he vote to meet the goals of Act 46 by consolidating schools in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union will occur on Nov. 7 in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford and Putney. Many other Vermont towns have voted against meeting the goals of Act 46 by consolidation. If passed, local school boards for each of our towns will be dissolved. The new “super board” will be the group that decides all kinds of things that local school boards, with participation of local parents and community members, do now.
School boards are often known as the education watchdog for their communities. They are responsible for ensuring that students get the best education for the tax dollars spent. School boards are responsible for negotiating contracts with school employees. They approve curriculum materials and they decide when the closure or expansion of a school is deemed necessary. If this merger passes, these decisions will be made by a new supervisory union board consisting of four members from Brattleboro, one member each from Guilford, Putney and Dummerston, and two at-large members who will be elected by a vote in each of the towns. With unification, while you can communicate with your town’s supervisory union board member(s), each member has only one vote. This will be quite different from how it works now, where you can contact anyone on your school board in your town directly with matters that concern you and the whole town can vote on the big decisions.
Making important decisions about our community schools is the responsibility of townspeople. While the proposed merger includes pathways of communication to the centralized school board, local people would not have a direct say in those decisions — about curriculum, staffing, maintenance, closure and a myriad of other issues. The oversight of teachers will be done by administrators who are not necessarily members of their community. Collective bargaining will occur at this centralized level.
Act 46 did not come out of nowhere, for no reason. We are facing genuine challenges in declining numbers of students, equal educational opportunity for all, increasing labor and facility costs, and a state education per pupil funding formula that is completely broken and needs fixing by our Legislature. Act 46 requires that every student have equal access to a variety of educational opportunities and that they meet or exceed educational quality standards. The act also promotes fiscal accountability and transparency, and, expects districts to save money in the process. However, many of us know that the already occurring cross school collaboration, centralized supply ordering, and some teacher and resource sharing has not been enough to achieve the goals required by Act 46. An Alternative Governance Structure group is working now to make a plan that preserves local school boards and also meets the goals of Act 46.
Let us face these problems collaboratively across town lines. We may have to make some terribly difficult decisions, but we at the local community level need to be the ones to do it. There’s no going back once we consolidate our schools.
