[V]oters in Cabot have resoundingly defeated a ballot article that would have shuttered the northern Vermont town’s tiny high school.
A petitioned article to close grades 9-12 at the K-12 Cabot School and tuition high school students out to their school of choice failed by a 2-1 margin. Just 188 voted yes to close the high school while 376 voted against the measure, according to results reported Tuesday evening by Superintendent Mark Tucker.
It’s not the first time Cabot has considered closing the high school. Enrollment now hovers around 40 students. Voters in 2013 defeated a proposal to close by similar margins, and in 2017 they opposed a merger proposal with Twinfield and Danville under Act 46 that would have also closed the school.
This year’s ballot initiative was brought by Rita Durgin, a parent who pulled her two high-school-aged sons out of Cabot through the state’s school choice lottery. Cabot has recently adopted a project- and proficiency-based curriculum that allows students to design their own curriculum. Durgin said the new approach wasn’t working for her children.
“I just feel that they needed more structure, and I didn’t think there was a lot of accountability or discipline as far as turning in assignments and taking tests,” she said.
And with enrollment so low, Durgin said there were just too few options in terms of academics and extracurricular activities.
“It’s dropped below critical mass, pretty much,” said Cabot resident Stephen LePage, who voted to close.
But while just a few dozen students remain at the high school, many parents who came to cast their ballots at the Cabot School gym on Tuesday said they were happy with the education their kids received.
Shane Smith, whose daughter is a sophomore, said closing the school down would remove the one option his daughter wanted above all else.
“If she had school choice – she would choose Cabot,” he said. Smith also added that he was worried about the expense of transportation in the event the town moved to choice.
Richard Hourihan, whose own son graduated from Cabot 12 years ago, said that the school’s size was precisely its strength.
“You cannot fall between the cracks when there’s only 20 kids in a class. If you come in not looking right, they’re going to notice,” he said.
And Johanna Thibault, who has children in the elementary grades in Cabot and whose husband, Rory, is on the school board, said after voting on Tuesday that she hoped the high school could still be there when it was time for her kids to attend.
“Even though it’s small, they’ve done a lot of work to keep the curriculum strong. They’re doing an amazing and innovative project-based curriculum. And the high school students just blow me away,” she said.
Taxes likely also motivated many to vote to keep the high school open. Financial estimates prepared by Tucker projected that tuitioning students out would cost $424,000 more than operating the school.
