Article 1 on the November 8 Ballot proposes a radical change in
the way we govern our schools. In the proposed governance structure, decisions
about everything from budgets to staffing would be centralized – handled by the
superintendent and a single 13-member unified district board. Each town’s
voters would elect board members with proportional representation on the board,
based on town population (Starksboro 2 members, Lincoln 2 members, New Haven 2
members, Monkton 2 members, and Bristol 5 members). Our local town school
boards would be eliminated.
If I believed that consolidation would result
in significant savings, and would result in substantive improvements in
teaching and learning, I would be supporting it. As a school board
member, and a member of the ANESU Act 46 Study Committee, and based on 16 years
of experience as the ANESU Associate Superintendent of Schools, I just haven't
seen evidence that the benefits of merging outweigh the losses...and the
negatives are huge, in my view:
- Moving from 7 boards with 34 board members to one 13-member board will make it harder for citizens to remain engaged in our schools. They will have less access to the information about our schools, and the assistance with concerns, that board members provide. The superintendent will have fewer opportunities to be accountable to our communities.
- The proposed structure is likely to decrease, rather than increase transparency and accountability. A single, $25 million budget will not receive the scrutiny for costs and performance that taxpayers deserve.
- Projected savings from merging school districts are minimal and short-lived. School district centralization will not lower property taxes in any significant way, for any significant length of time, and we pay for the tax rate incentives through an increase in our own taxes! In addition, the projected operational savings ($140,000) are minimal, and outweighed by the costs.
- Hiring which teachers work with which kids, in which schools, is by far the most important decision that school leaders make. In becoming one unified district, we risk diminishing the principals’ and the superintendent’s authority in making those decisions.
- We do have work to do to improve our schools, but we are making improvements, and we can make additional improvements, without radically changing our governance structure. Most of the benefits offered for school consolidation can be achieved within the school governance structure that we have, without eliminating local school boards and without centralizing control of our schools.
There ARE other options and there IS time to make a
different choice. If one or
more of our 5 towns votes 'no' on November 8, the proposal will be stopped, and
our school boards will need to decide, together, what to do next. Our other
options include:
- Sending a report to Montpelier that shows how the improvements we’re planning, and the improvements we’re already making, will enable us to meet the goals of Act 46 without radically changing the governance structure of our schools.
- Proposing an alternative form of governance in which schools retain an elected council/board that delegates many duties to a central board, but retains genuine responsibility for such key functions as developing the school budget and hiring the school principal.
We CAN do better, we DO have time, and we DO have a choice in this
matter. Please join me in voting ‘no’ on
Article 1.
For more information please
visit these websites:
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