[M]ore than 31 school boards jointly filed a second legal challenge to forced mergers under Act 46 on Thursday in Washington County superior court.
The lawsuit challenges the State Board of Education’s final reorganization of districts under the controversial district consolidation law. The board’s order, issued at the end of November, merged 45 districts across 39 towns into 11 new consolidated districts. Another four districts could be merged under the order if existing union districts agree to absorb them.
The suit argues that the board’s action was unconstitutional and “ignored the plain text” of education laws, according to a statement issued by David Kelley, a Craftsbury Common attorney representing the plaintiffs. Other attorneys at work on the appeal include Ines McGillion and Charles Merriman.
“If upheld, the Board’s ‘casual dismissal of statute’ will have lasting impacts for decades, perhaps even centuries, to come. It is already tearing communities apart and pitting towns against each other,” the appeal states.
Plaintiffs include 31 school boards, seven select boards, one planning commission, and 15 taxpayers, parents and students. The state board, the Vermont Agency of Education and Secretary of Education Dan French are all named as defendants.
The suit is the second legal challenge to the board’s final order under Act 46. The Stowe and Elmore-Morristown districts jointly filed their own appeal last week.
Like the Stowe and Elmore-Morristown appeal, this week’s suit contests the state board’s decisions on the grounds that they violated both Act 46 itself as well as the Vermont and U.S. constitutions.
The body’s actions ignored the law’s intent to allow for alternatives to a unified “preferred structure,” the suit argues, and arbitrarily imposed mergers without a thorough vetting of the proposals brought forward by districts asking to remain autonomous.
The 73-page complaint also argues the state board ignored Act 49, a law that modified Act 46, when it went ahead and merged districts with different levels of debt. Act 49 required the board to consider debt when making their merger decisions. Moreover, the lawsuit argues, state law won’t allow municipalities to incur bonded debt without the consent of local voters.
Like in the Stowe and Elmore-Morristown suit, the plaintiffs also argue the state board simply doesn’t have the authority to dissolve school districts. That power rests solely with the Legislature, they say, and lawmakers cannot delegate that authority – even by way of legislation – over to the executive branch.
The towns and school districts listed as plaintiffs include:
The Athens School District, Barnard School District, Barnard Select Board, Bellows Falls Union High School, Berlin School District, Brighton School District, Brownington Select Board, Calais School District, Calais Select Board, Charleston School District, Coventry School District, Craftsbury School District, Dummerston School District, Franklin School District, Franklin Select Board, Glover School District, Grafton School District, Greensboro School District, Greensboro Select Board, Highgate School District, Irasburg Planning Commission, Irasburg School District, Irasburg Select Board, Jay/Westfield School District, Lakeview Union School District, Lowell School District, Middlesex School District, Montgomery School District, Montgomery Select Board, Newbury School District, Newport Town School District, Richford School District, Sheldon School District, Stannard School District, Troy School District, Westminster School District, Windham School District, and Worcester School District
