This article by Corey McDonald first appeared in The Other Paper on Nov. 30, 2023.
South Burlington is moving forward with a proposal to increase the number of members on the city’s school board and is aiming for a Town Meeting Day vote.
Originally shelved earlier this year, the city council is now decoupling a proposal to increase the number of school board members from other proposals that were laid out by the city’s charter committee, which spent much of the year exploring different governing models for the city and school board.
“We are now under a really tight timeline to get something on the Town Meeting Day ballot, so we need to give direction to the city attorney to start drafting language,” city manager Jessie Baker said.
The charter committee’s final report, sent to the council in August, recommended adding members to both the school board and the city council and keeping the city manager over switching to mayoral-based administration.
The debate to switch from an at-large election system to a ward system, however, has found little consensus.
Councilors at a September meeting decided to put those conversations on hold, and “did not appear ready to discuss expansion of the council or make any change,” councilor Meaghan Emery said.
But community members had reached out to the council and asked to allow the school board expansion proposal to move forward on its own, rather than keep it tied to more contentious recommendations.
“I think there’s been a lot of consensus to move forward on expanding the school board,” former school board member Elizabeth Fitzgerald said. “Given the runway to have public hearings and then get this through council and to the Legislature, we’re still looking at probably a 2026 implementation.”
The city’s charter committee in August formally recommended that the school board expand to at least seven members, noting that other comparably sized districts have at least nine members, if not more.
South Burlington’s school board is currently made up of five members elected at-large — three of the seats are three-year terms and two are two-year terms. The Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District, which had roughly the same enrollment and similar budget figures for the 2022-23 school year, has 13 board members.
Current and previous board members have said five members is not enough to shoulder the school district’s workload.
While the charter committee was unanimous in its support of expanding the board, it also agreed that the school board should remain at-large — meaning voters across the city, rather than from wards or districts within the city, would have a say in electing each member of the board.
The city council, at its Nov. 20 meeting, was unanimous in its support. It will need to warn a public hearing on the ballot item at a December meeting and will have a public hearing meeting in January on the matter.
The council landed on adding two more board members — one additional three-year term, and one additional two-year term — bringing the number of school board members up to seven. But city attorney Colin McNeil noted that the city was not limited to adding just two members.
“As we’re coming up with the number of school board members, we’re not bound by that, you can come up with your own terms,” McNeil said.
The school board has had a tumultuous year. After removing current board member Alex McHenry from his position as chair this summer, Bryan Companion, who was elected to the board in March, announced his resignation.
Companion was elected to the two-year seat in March, beating former South Burlington board chair Travia Childs by 26 votes. He submitted a letter of resignation on Sept. 11 citing a “lack of respect and civility” at board meetings for his departure.
The board was left with only four members — McHenry, Laura Williams, Chelsea Tillinghast, and current board chair Kate Bailey — who initially opted against filling the vacancy and instead waiting until a town meeting day vote.
But the four members reversed course this month and appointed Tim Warren to the board.
The city council, while moving the school board proposal along, seems unlikely to address the charter committee’s other recommendations before the new year.
