In a lopsided vote on Tuesday, residents across five towns in southern Vermont have rejected merging their school districts.
In the final tally, 508 voted against consolidation, 166 voted for it, according to Windham Central Supervisory Union Superintendent William Anton.
The town school districts of Townsend, Brookline, Newfane, and Jamaica have already merged into the West River Modified Union School District. But Windham has previously rejected consolidating with its neighbors at the ballot box, and it has also joined a lawsuit, alongside some 30 other school districts challenging forced mergers under Act 46.
The State Board of Education’s final plan under the sweeping consolidation law merged 45 districts into 11 new union school districts. But in four instances – including Windham’s – it asked existing union districts to hold votes on incorporating an independent elementary district.
That lawsuit has seen a string of rulings from a superior court judge in the state’s favor. But plaintiff school districts have also maintained they planned to appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Windham lost out on a projected 30-cent tax rate reduction by staying independent, as well as a chance to participate in West River’s full-day pre-kindergarten program.
But the Windham school board has been steadfastly anti-merger, and heavily suspicious that a regional board would quickly move to shutter the town’s tiny elementary school, where enrollment hovers in the teens. The school board had, at one point, even entertained a radical proposal for staying independent: shutting down.
“We ask that you respect Windham’s vote to not merge taken in March of 2017, as well as subsequent strong votes that indicate Windham’s desire to remain autonomous,” the board wrote in a letter sent to voters in all five towns.
Turnout was particularly high in Windham, where 159 came out to vote. But in every town, the superintendent said, turnout was higher than it had been in this year’s prior budget votes.
“I think it’s exactly how the process should have played out,” Anton said.
