The Vermont State Board of Education is sending towns thinking about exiting unified school districts a message: You may truly be on your own.
In a bid to save its tiny elementary school, the town of Ripton sought — and won — independence from the Addison Central School District this year. Its successful campaign to convince voters in all seven of the district’s member towns to let it go its own way was celebrated by anti-school district consolidation activists. And it was seen as a potential blueprint for many other communities weighing independence.
Vermont’s school district landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, following the enactment of Act 46, a 2015 law that incentivized — and in some cases, forced — districts to consolidate into larger entities. But some of that work could unravel, as some communities seek to unmerge to forestall school closures contemplated by district leaders making tough choices about where to invest as enrollments continue to decline.
At a meeting on Wednesday, members of the state board made clear what secession might entail, including providing for such services as special education, transportation, and financial and data management — alone.
Small school districts usually rely on supervisory unions — a sort of umbrella school district — to administer such services in order to benefit from economies of scale. The Board of Education is responsible for supervisory union configurations, and Ripton came before the body Wednesday to find out to whom it might be assigned.
Instead, board members suggested they favored Secretary of Education Dan French’s proposal: to simply make Ripton, whose enrollment hovers around 40 students, its own supervisory district, which would make it entirely responsible for such services.
Neighboring supervisory unions have said they did not want to take on responsibility for the small Addison County town. And leaders in the Addison Central School District similarly made clear that they had no desire to reconfigure their own governance structure in order to re-incorporate Ripton as an independent district. Reverting from a unified district into a supervisory union would be less efficient, they argued, and strain a system that has worked hard in recent years to become more flexible, equitable and streamlined.
Board of Education members gave Ripton an alternate path: Withdraw your secession, and return to the Addison Central School District as a member town. They suggested that the two parties talk about a compromise and return to the board this winter to update them on talks.
“The preferred outcome is that Ripton folds back into ACSD as a full member,” said Oliver Olsen, the state board’s chair, during the meeting Wednesday. A former lawmaker, Olsen was a key architect of Act 46 during his time in the Legislature.
Steve Cash, Ripton’s newly elected school board chair, said in an interview Thursday the town hadn’t anticipated the state board’s actions. But he said he’s willing to discuss undoing Ripton’s withdrawal in good faith, and could see a path forward if ACSD’s leadership concedes genuine autonomy to Ripton on any decision related to closing the school.
“The reality of our withdrawal was that it was our only option,” he said. “And so knowing that, if we can have a chance to have another dialogue, see if perspectives have changed, if there is some middle ground that Ripton and the ACSD can work on — I think we kind of have to take the chance and at least see.”
