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State Board Of Education Moves Ahead With Decisions On Act 46 Forced Mergers

Vermont Education Secretary Dan French, left, and State Board of Education chairwoman Krista Huling consult a merger map during a State Board meeting Wednesday.
Howard Weiss-Tisman
/
VPR File
Vermont Education Secretary Dan French, left, and State Board of Education chairwoman Krista Huling consult a merger map during a State Board meeting Wednesday. The board took action on 30 proposals at the meeting this week.

On Wednesday, the State Board of Education began its process for deciding which school districts will be forced to merge under Act 46, Vermont’s school district consolidation law.

For the past three years, school districts around Vermont have been in a voluntary phase, which allowed voters and school boards to work on their own merger plans.

There are now 43 merger plans which include school districts that either rejected their merger proposals or were unable to find similar nearby districts to consolidate with.

In June, the acting Secretary of Educationissued a statewide plan which made a series of recommendations about the unmerged districts. The State Board must now consider each of those proposals, one at a time, and agree whether the state should force the reluctant districts to merge into a larger district.

At the meeting Wednesday, which was held at Hartford High School, the board took action on 30 proposals, largely agreeing with each of the secretary’s recommendations.

Early in the meeting, State Board member John Carroll asked his fellow board members if it made sense to slow down and not try to force mergers on the districts that were most opposed to the secretary’s recommendations.

“I want you to be thinking about the possibility of an asterisk in the state plan where we say to the General Assembly, ‘Our recommendation to you is not to drive a square peg into a round hole,’” Carroll said. “Yes you can, but the results might be very ugly.”

The board did not agree with Carroll, saying that at this time changing the deadline would be akin to “moving the goal posts.”

More from VPR — Act 46 Enters Final Decision Period: State Education Board's Merger Plan Due By November [Sept. 19]

State Board chairwoman Krista Huling also reminded Carroll that Act 46 demands that the State Board act on the recommendations, and that the board did not have the authority to push out the deadlines.

As the State Board enters the final phase of Act 46, Huling said at the meeting that the board has hired its own attorney to help with the process.

Huling said the board consulted with the Attorney General’s Office about the need to have counsel as it moves ahead with the forced mergers, and Thomas Little has been retained by the board.

Twenty-one towns have signed on to a possible lawsuit to fight the forced mergers in court.

So what did the State Board of Education decide?

The 43 proposals being looked at by the State Board of Education at this stage include districts that currently operate in a number of different ways.

Below are groups of districts that exist under similar circumstances, and we've noted how the State Board ruled so far on proposals for the particular districts.

As you'll see, some districts can remain independent, some will be forced to merge and some need to be looked at further at a later date.

A thin grey line.

The secretary did not recommend that these school districts merge, mostly because they don’t easily fit into the structures of their neighboring districts. The State Board agreed with the secretary’s proposals and voted to allow them to remain independent:

  • Arlington School District
  • Canaan School District
  • Coventry School District
  • Sharon School District
  • South Hero School District
  • Strafford School District
  • Thetford School District
  • Vernon School District
  • Windsor/West Windsor School District
  • Wolcott School District

A thin grey line.

These school districts feed into a single high school, and even though most of these districts opposed merging, the secretary of education recommended that they be forced to merge. The State Board voted to approve most of the the secretary’s proposal:

  • Brattleboro, Putney, Dummerston, Guilford and Putney are being forced to merge as the Brattleboro Union High School District
  • Franklin, Highgate and Swanton are being forced to merge as part of the Mississquoi Valley Union School District
  • Bradford and Newbury are being forced to merge as the Oxbow Union High School District
  • The board did not vote on the proposed merger between Barre and Barre Town as there will be a vote in both communities on Nov.  6.
  • Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester are being forced to merge as the U-32 School District
  • Groton, Ryegate and Wells River will not be forced to merge with the Oxbow Union High School District. The secretary had proposed the merger, but the State Board unanimously rejected the idea.

A thin grey line.

These are single independent school districts that did not merge and are surrounded, so to speak, by merged districts. The secretary proposed that all of these districts be forced to merge with their neighbors and the State Board approved the secretary’s proposal:

  • Barnard Elementary School District
  • Cambridge Elementary School District
  • Huntington Elementary School District
  • Orwell Elementary School District
  • Windham Elementary School District

A thin grey line.

In these school districts there are small, but important, differences that make it hard to merge. One school, for instance, might have choice and the nearby district does not, so it is hard overall to merge the districts.

The board split on some of these decisions:

  • Athens, Grafton, Rockingham, Westminster were not forced to merge but the board will reconsider the districts at a future meeting
  • Lakeview Union Elementary, Greensboro, Hardwick, Stannard and Woodbury were not forced to merge but the board will reconsider the districts at a future meeting
  • Bennington, North Bennington, Pownal, Shaftsbury and Woodford will be forced to merge as the Mount Anthony Union High School District
  • Brighton, Charleston, Derby, Holland, Jay, Lowell, Morgan, Newport Town, Troy, Westfield and Coventry were not forced to merge — but the board recognized serious challenges in this district and expect to take up the proposed merger in the final plan

A thin grey line.

These very small districts do not operate schools; instead they pay tuition for all students in the district.

The board did not vote to merge these districts with their supervisory union, but the board could rewrite the boundaries of another nearby district and force these districts into a merger at a future meeting:

  • Pittsfield School District
  • Sandgate School District
  • Searsburg School District
  • Stratton School District
  • Winhall School District
A thin grey line.

The State Board did not have time at its meeting to address the following districts. For this last set of districts a merger is possible, but there are challenges in each proposed merger and the board will have to discuss each one at its next meeting:

  • Cabot School District
  • Danville School District, Marshfield and Plainfield as part of the Twinfield Union School District
  • Craftsbury School District
  • Elmore-Morristown School District and Richford School District
  • Fairfax, Fletcher and Georgia school districts
  • Hartland and Weathersfield school districts
  • Montgomery School District
  • Sheldon School District
  • Stamford School District
  • Waits River Valley, Corinth and Topsham

Correction 10/19/2018 6:26 p.m. A previous version of this post stated that Barre and Barre Town would have to merge. The story has been updated to reflect that is not the case due to an upcoming scheduled vote.

Correction 2:29 p.m. Action was taken on 30 proposals, not 29 as originally stated in the story. A previous version of the post did not include there was a decision regarding the Groton, Ryegate and Wells River districts. It has now been updated.

Howard Weiss-Tisman is Vermont Public’s southern Vermont reporter, but sometimes the story takes him to other parts of the state.
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