[W]INDHAM — One of the smallest elementary schools in Vermont is one step nearer to closing.
Windham residents braved an early season snowstorm Monday night, gathering in their town’s lone school to give the school board the authority to shutter the tiny K-6 elementary by next year. The vote was decisive, with 67 to 11 voting in favor of the two articles on the ballot, which were brought by the board in the hopes of blocking a forced merger under Act 46.
The consolidation law is in its final phase, and Windham is the last of a handful of districts to try an unexpected strategy for fighting state-imposed mergers: shutting down.
That’s because the state cannot consolidate districts with unlike operating structures. A district that tuitions out its high school students cannot be merged with a district that operates K-12 schools, for example.
Act 46 itself cannot close or consolidate actual schools – only school boards. But proponents of the close-on-your-own strategy argue that consolidated boards will inevitably close smaller campuses to save money. Better to close now, they say, and at least keep their school board and school facilities locally controlled.
Monday night’s decision doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Windham Elementary, whose current enrollment hovers under 20 students. School officials told voters they would try other levers to block a forced merger with the West River Unified School District, which includes Townshend, Brookline, Jamaica and Newfane, before opting to close as a last resort.
The West River district’s governing documents actually have some of the strongest protections against school closures in the state. But Windham school officials say the consolidated West River board would retain the power to restructure grades, and point to a controversial plan underway to send all sixth-graders to Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School in Townshend.
“We could be nibbled to death by ducks. Take the sixth-graders, take the fifth-graders, take the fourth-graders. And all of a sudden, our building is not very viable,” Windham School Board Chair Carolyn Partridge told voters.
The Windham School Board has already voted to join a lawsuit that a coalition of districts pushing back against mergers plan to file as soon as the state’s Act 46 plan is finalized. And Partridge, who also represents the area in the Vermont House of Representatives, also told voters she expected legislation would be filed in the upcoming session.
“Please vote yes on this and give the school board the leeway on this to negotiate,” Windham resident Howard Ires said from the floor.
Windham school officials also have one more hope for keeping a school in town, even if they shutter Windham Elementary and give families for children K-6 vouchers to attend whatever school they choose. An independent group is looking into opening a private school in town, and could potentially open up shop in the elementary school’s current facilities. But Partridge conceded a privately operated school wouldn’t be sustainable if too few parents opted to send their children there.
Meanwhile, it’s unclear if the school board deciding to close could block a merger after all. The Agency of Education has argued that a community’s vote to close can’t itself block forced mergers unless a school actually suspends operations before the State Board of Education, which has the final say under the consolidation law, makes its decisions about how districts should be reorganized.
Windham’s vote, incidentally, comes just days before the state board’s scheduled meeting in St. Albans on Wednesday to formally adopt its plan under Act 46. The state board has already taken provisional votes on all forced mergers, but none of its decisions are technically final yet.
