File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
After months of discussing, campaigning and voting, Ripton has reached the final stage of its effort to withdraw from the Addison Central School District.
The Vermont State Board of Education could consider the town’s request as soon as April 21, and all signs point to approval of the withdrawal.
As the town looks ahead, its residents’ reactions are mixed.
For those who campaigned for Ripton to withdraw from Addison Central, receiving overwhelming approval from Bridport, Cornwall, Middlebury, Salisbury, Weybridge and Shoreham on Town Meeting Day was an exciting win.
“I feel super grateful to our neighbors. I feel like we’ve been seen and validated by the vote and that they understand our plight,” said Emily Hoyler, who has three children attending Ripton Elementary School.
Joanna Doria lives right next door to the school and walks her children there every day.
“I’ve lived internationally throughout my life and settled in Vermont to have a sustainable, simple life. A local school is part of that,” Doria said.
Doria and Hoyler said they were happy with the quality of education Addison Central provided. For them, the issue was what the school means to the community. They didn’t want Ripton Elementary to be closed — a possibility raised as part of a consolidation effort by the district — and thought district officials were not hearing their voices.
“It’s bigger than the school for me. It’s about community resilience,” Hoyler said.
On the other side is Orrin Smith, a Ripton native whose 6-year-old attends kindergarten at the elementary school. He also thought his voice went unheard. Smith, however, was advocating to remain part of Addison Central.
“I only saw signs all over town and everywhere saying ‘Save our Schools’ or ‘Free Ripton.’ I never saw a single sign about staying in the district,” he said.
Smith said he emailed his thoughts on the withdrawal to John Carroll, chair of the State Board of Education; to Addison Central Superintendent Peter Burrows; and to Gov. Phil Scott. He said he did not receive substantive responses from any of them.
Smith is concerned about how Ripton’s secession will affect the quality of his daughter’s education, in particular the loss of the International Baccalaureate program offered by Addison Central.
As part of Addison Central, “I know what the education is,” he said. “I don’t know what this Ripton school is going to be or who’s going to run it.”
The teachers at Ripton Elementary are all employed by the Addison Central School District. Smith worries they may choose to teach at other schools in the district, rather than stay in Ripton.
Ripton Elementary Principal Tracey Harrington has expressed similar concerns about staff turnover due to the withdrawal. Staff members have already established seniority in the district, receive competitive salaries, benefits and direction from the central office, and get to work with a collaborative team of teachers and leaders.
Specifically, Harrington is uncertain about Ripton’s ability to find and keep special educators and school counselors to help students who struggle the most. Services such as speech and language support and therapeutic counseling have thus far been coordinated across the district, which allows these educators to work full time for one employer. Ripton would likely be able to hire specialists only on a part-time basis.
“It can be hard to find those highly qualified people or fund them to begin with,” Harrington said. “Ripton already doesn’t get all of the service providers that some schools do, just because of our numbers, so if the numbers continue to go down, we would be less likely to be able to serve those kids in greatest need.”
Even for pro-withdrawal residents, the uncertainty that lies ahead can feel daunting. Now that the secession campaign is over, Ripton faces a long list of difficult decisions and realities, including staffing and special needs services — the “nitty gritty details,” in Harrington’s words.
Hoyler says the path forward will require a tremendous amount of collaboration and compromise.
“We’re not always going to agree on everything. But I believe that the process of working together and coming to agree on what we want will hopefully make us stronger,” Hoyler said.
For Ripton Selectboard chair Laurie Cox, idealism needs to be balanced with practicality.
“I worry that we can’t come up with a really viable model that the townspeople can support economically. I think we can, but it is a worry of mine,” Cox said.
Cox sees the impending withdrawal as an issue that extends far beyond Ripton. She and her colleagues think Ripton could be an example for other towns across the state, or even the country, because the school is much more than a building — it’s a major focus of the community.
“I really feel like it would be wonderful if Ripton, this little tiny town, could come up with a model that would be able to be functional in other places, too,” Cox said.
It’s essential that Vermont’s small towns not only survive, but also thrive, Cox said, and schools play a key role in that.
