Editor’s note: This commentary is by David Major, who is the chair of the Westminster School Board (for a short bit longer).
[I]t is my birthday, this Town Meeting Day. Westminster actually had its meeting day on Saturday. My mother, Beverly, was there, as was my 22-month-old grandniece, Hazel — one on a wheelchair and one bopping around on her newly found legs. The last time my mother missed Town Meeting was 58 years ago, when I was born.
Yesterday Judge Robert Mello in St. Albans decided to allow the Legislature’s law forcing the merger of school districts to proceed. So this is Vermont’s last day for school town meetings. We have made a choice.
We have chosen to place our faith in the notion that bigger is better, rather than small is beautiful.
We have chosen more centralized governance over the direct democracy of Town Meeting governance.
We have chosen fewer bigger budgets over more smaller budgets: more “transparency” from the top looking down over comprehensibility from the bottom looking up.
We have chosen greater control by fewer people and we have chosen to reduce volunteer citizen participation in the running of our schools.
We have chosen the educational equity of uniformity over the education children receive from their parents and neighbors involvement in local democracy and schools.
It is a time when we Vermonters, like many around the world, desire a greater authority, a time when we have less trust in democracy, and a time when we question the validity of votes. I understand the choice Vermont has made to end each towns’ control of their schools, but my birthday wish is for a different choice in a different time.
