A unified school board in the Mad River Valley has formally endorsed closing a local elementary school in the face of declining enrollments.
The Harwood Unified school board voted 7-6 Wednesday night to explore a plan to close the Fayston Elementary School, and move all district seventh and eighth graders to Crossett Brook Middle School, along with all Moretown fifth and sixth graders.
The board’s narrow vote, which came after an hour of impassioned public comment, reflects deep divisions in the community.
Parents, school employees and community members packed the Harwood Union High School library on Wednesday, filing in one by one to say their piece.
Jeremy Gulley, of Waitsfield, said he had faith kids would be well educated at any school in the district, and he encouraged people to define community more broadly.
“For me, the Mad River Valley is my community. The school that my kids have attended, the elementary school especially, is not what defines community for me,” he said.
Matt Henchen, of Moretown, meanwhile, argued the question should be put directly to voters in the town most directly impacted.
“I have a real hard time with community members in another community being able to close another community’s school,” he said.
Justina Boyden, a longtime teacher at Fayston – and graduate of the school – read a statement signed by 18 Fayston school staff members urging school board members to visit the school to see “the rich and thoughtful education we provide to each and every student.”
“Rather than focusing on closing a school, we ask that you be open to the possibilities,” she told the board.
Harwood is one of a growing number of Vermont school districts contemplating a school closure in the face of shrinking student population. School officials in some districts say that certain schools are too under-capacity to justify staying open, and that pooling students in one location can help strengthen programming.
But closure conversations are also often paired with bond proposals, as school boards and administrators begin tackling in earnest long-deferred maintenance in the state’s aging educational facilities.
The Harwood vote was not legally binding.
The district’s incorporating documents prohibit the school board from closing a school within the first four years of the district’s existence, and after that, they would need a two-thirds majority to do so. That means the Fayston school will stay open at least through the 2020-21 school year, unless voters in Fayston approve a proposal to close the facility at the ballot box.
The board vote, however, sets the stage for a number of upcoming decisions.
School board members intend to put a bond before voters in March, largely to renovate Harwood Union High School. Administrators have calculated that the annual savings from closing Fayston could go a long way toward offsetting new debt service payments.
School board members still haven’t settled on a final bond proposal, but plan to do so in the next two months. They also haven’t decided on a timeline to consolidate the middle grades.
Board members debated the matter at length, in a sometimes testy exchange.
James Grace, a board member from Waterbury who supports moving to close the school, told the public his had not been an easy decision to make.
“I’ve personally have had my integrity and ethics questioned. I’ve been yelled at, insulted, and attacked. I’ve been lied about and lied to. Some have found it appropriate to involve my children,” he said.
In response, Theresa Membrino, a board member from Fayston, who has opposed consolidation, quipped that his experience had not been universal.
“I will just say for the record James’ experience is not the same as mine, as a board member,” she said.
Board members opposed to consolidation argued the vote was premature, and appeared to contradict the spirit, if not the law, of the district’s governing documents regarding school closures.
“The information continues to evolve. We get more and better information. And I just don’t think we’re there yet,” said Maureen McCracken, a board member from Waterbury.
But pro-closure board members insisted consolidating schools was the best option for strengthening and equalizing programming across the district.
Alex Thomsen, a board member from Waterbury, asked people to consider that the Fayston school not only spent more per-pupil than any of the other schools in the district, but also educated the most affluent students.
“It is not all about the money, but we need to think about whether we are spending money across the district in fair ways,” she said.
Board vice chair Torrey Smith, of Duxbury, said she had struggled with her decision, especially when talking to those directly impacted by the possibility of closure. But she said she kept returning to the staff and programming cuts the district has had to repeatedly make in order to hold the line on taxes as enrollments steadily decline.
“These are not incidental cuts. When we talk about keeping the status quo, that’s what keeping the status quo looks like. It’s figuring out how to sew a little tighter here, and duct tape a little bit there,” she said. “That chips away at the opportunity that our kids have.”
