Voters in the Mountain Views School District voted on Town Meeting Day to reject a $99 million bond to fund the construction of a new joint middle and high school in Woodstock.
The school district serves Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Plymouth, Pomfret, Reading and Woodstock. Voters opposed the bond by a vote of 1,910 to 1,570 on Tuesday, according to preliminary results.
The buildings that comprise the current Woodstock Union High School and Middle School date back to the 1950s and 1960s. The building has a failing heating system, faulty plumbing, a lack of sprinklers, among other woes, which have led school leaders to push for a new school in recent years.
Last year on Town Meeting Day, voters approved a more than $1.5 million bond to begin designing and permitting for a new school.
Since a new school was first imagined, however, the price tag has skyrocketed due to inflation and rising construction costs, increasing from about $65 million in 2019 to $99 million, today, according to Ben Ford, a Mountain View board member.
According to a tax impact calculator posted on the district’s website, the bond was expected to increase education taxes of the average homeowner in the district by about 16% during the years when debt payments would hit their peak.
That price tag, coupled with fears of skyrocketing property tax increases in a chaotic school budget year, left voters hesitant to approve the bond vote leading up to Town Meeting Day.
According to the district website, the district had hoped to build the new school in time for the beginning of the school year in August 2026.
With the bond vote having failed, it’s unclear what the district’s next steps will be. For now, students will remain at the aging Woodstock Union High School and Middle School.
Clarification: This story was updated to more precisely describe when the Woodstock Union High School and Middle School was built.
