This story by Tracy Brannstrom was first published by the Montpelier Bridge on Sept. 11.
What to do with the Roxbury Village School building is on the minds of board members for the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools, following the board’s decision to close the school earlier this year.
At its Sept. 4 meeting, Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools Superintendent Libby Bonesteel presented a handful of hypothetical educational uses for the mostly unoccupied building.
These include a magnet-type school, such as a sustainability or STEAM program for kids or a bilingual program for elementary students; a regional center for students in need of mental health support; a community center that could include childcare for employees and senior care; a remote site for Central Vermont Career Center; or a site that houses all central office employees.
Bonesteel said that these ideas are preliminary and would require more research and discussion.
The school’s closure, as a budgetary decision, came six years after voters in Montpelier and Roxbury decided to merge the Roxbury School District and the Montpelier School District under Act 46. Roxbury middle school and high school students started attending Montpelier schools in 2018, while elementary students from RVS joined Union Elementary School in Montpelier this school year — a decision that Bonesteel said saved the district $1.5 million.
The district can keep the Roxbury Village School building if board members determine it could be used for educational purposes, a requirement outlined in the articles of agreement that created the merged district. In such a scenario, board members said they would need to better understand future operating costs, human resource needs, and a timeline for moving forward.
“To just say ‘It’s not an elementary school, therefore there’s no educational value,’ I think, is a little short-sighted,” board member Rhett Williams said during an Aug. 21 board meeting.
Bonesteel, in her Sept. 4 presentation, said that while some of the options would require a one-time monetary investment for renovations like the community center, central office relocation, and rented use by the Central Vermont Career Center, other options would require a more significant, ongoing investment with staffing, transportation, curricular resources, and other elements.
A magnet school, Bonesteel said, would require the district add an estimated $2 million to its annual budget. While a board member said during the Aug. 21 board meeting that the district could theoretically collect around $20,000 in annual tuition from families, the program would need to be “really quite something” to achieve that kind of financial success. Bonesteel said it would be a risky decision to make with taxpayer dollars.
Bonesteel told board members that, in addition to new staff hires being costly, finding new staff members to hire is difficult in itself. “Those particular unicorns are really hard to come by right now,” she said.
Cost limitations aside, some of the options presented are simply not ideal because of the location of the school, Bonesteel said.
She told board members that regional superintendents already stated that turning Roxbury Village School into a mental health support center for students — based on New York State’s Board of Cooperative Educational Services model — is not feasible. Some students would need to be bussed to RVS for up to an hour each day for a period of weeks, she said, and these would be students experiencing mental health crises.
Using the building as a central office location, too, would mean longer commute times for staff members. And as for renting it to the Central Vermont Career Center, although that could bring in more revenue for Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools, not only is the location not ideal, but the career center has yet to express interest.
Bonesteel said she didn’t feel comfortable commenting on which option might be best. “I think any of these scenarios would cause a significant veer in the direction of the district,” she said.
If the district is neither able to keep or chooses not to keep the property, the board is obligated to sell it to the town of Roxbury for $1 — the amount the district acquired it for in 2018 from the town.
Bonesteel said the Roxbury select board has discussed using the Roxbury Village School and that board members recently asked Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools about testing for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the building
The town’s use of the property would be stipulated for “community and public purposes” for a minimum of five years. At an Aug. 21 board meeting, board members said they wanted further clarification on what that entails, as well as on how it would be monitored and by whom.
If the town decides to sell the property before the five-year period is up, it would be required to compensate the district for capital improvements the district made to the property.
The board could also sell the building to another potential buyer were the school board or town not qualified to take it on. The board questioned whether it could be sold to a school district beyond MRPS.
At the Aug. 21 board meeting, board member Tim Duggan pointed out that the building is valued at $2.5 million. “While I think it’s important to approach this [decision] in partnership with Roxbury, I also think that as stewards of an asset that’s worth that much, we have to think about how to maximize value for the district, consistent with our legal obligations and fair partnership,” Duggan said.
Whatever they decide, board members said they need to figure out what to do with the building by early December because the decision has implications for the district’s fiscal year 2026 budget.
The school building is currently being used for Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools after-school programming. Bonesteel said that Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools will maintain the building for the coming year, spending $60,000 on building upkeep and $85,000 on after-school programming.
The board plans to invite the district’s lawyer to the board’s upcoming meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 18 in order to weigh options and obligations under the articles of agreement — a discussion that would likely be in a closed session since it deals with real estate, board members said.
The board will also likely host a public forum at its Wednesday, Oct. 2 meeting, followed by a period for additional public comment. All regularly scheduled board meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and are held at either Roxbury Village School or Montpelier High School.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when the school board decided to close the Roxbury Village School.
