By PATRICK ADRIAN
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WINDSOR, Vt. — Windsor school board members believe a merger with West Windsor’s school district would benefit Windsor students long term.
Whether that belief is attractive enough to win over Windsor residents is another matter.
Members of Windsor’s Act 46 Study Committee presented a merger proposal to Windsor residents at a public forum Thursday night at Windsor High School. The proposal was drafted to comply with Vermont’s new school operational requirements, known as Act 46.
In 2015 Vermont legislators passed Act 46 to address the state’s declining population and its cost burden on the state to fund education. With shrinking student enrollments in Vermont’s public schools, Act 46 detailed restructuring guidelines for school districts in order to increase the class sizes and improve their cost-efficiency to deliver education.
Meeting Act 46 guidelines forced many districts to consider consolidating, an idea that still causes friction in communities due to its clash with traditional local governing.
The Windsor Committee initially hoped to consolidate into a larger district by including the towns of Hartland and Weathersfield, according to the committee’s final report to the state.
Had that proposal succeeded, Windsor High School would have served as the high school for all four towns, as none of the other district’s schools go beyond eighth grade.
Hartland and Weathersfield refused to give up their school choice, explained committee coordinator Peter Clark.
The proposed merger would require all students after a grandfathered period to attend Windsor High School rather than send tuition money to attend schools in outside districts.
The only town willing to give up school choice was West Windsor, Clark said.
Without Hartland and Weathersfield joining the unified district, Windsor would carry most of the cost-burden in a merger with West Windsor. West Windsor’s student population is less than one-third of Windsor’s.
Many residents at Thursday’s criticized the proposal for appearing lopsidedly in benefits to West Windsor, who would see significant tax savings by merging with a larger district like Windsor. During the 2019 tax year, a $150,000 home in West Windsor would see a tax savings of $885. In contrast that same priced home in Windsor would increase in taxes by $65.
Residents also disliked that the grandfather clause that would allow West Windsor students currently in grades 6 through 12 to still receive tuition for school choice. For the first six years of the merger, Windsor taxpayers would be covering the cost for West Windsor students to attend other high schools instead of Windsor’s.
Clark returned to the podium to direct the audience’s focus to long term thinking.
While the unified district under this merger would be small initially, Clark believed that mounting costs will inevitably force the districts trying to resist consolidating to face truths about sustainability.
Those districts will start looking for larger districts to join. For that reason Clark reasoned to residents that setting the foundation of a unified district, allowing Windsor and West Windsor to create new programs through teacher sharing and larger class sizes in the middle and high schools, would attract new districts later.
“I said the same thing to Hartland and Weathersfield,” said Clark, “School choice is like a sacred. But it might not be a sacred cow when it gets really expensive, and when that sacred cow starts becoming perceived by most Vermonters as sending money out to other districts that you don’t control.”
“There is no easy answer here,” Clark said in closing, “But I say this as someone who has really come to love this community . . . Think about the long term, not just the short term.”
The committee will present this proposal to West Windsor residents on Feb. 27 at West Windsor Town Hall.
Windsor and West Windsor communities will vote on March 6 whether to approve the proposed merger.
Should voters approve, the current structure would continue through June 30, the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year, at which time the present school districts and boards would dissolve and the new unified district would go into effect.
If either town vote fails to approve it, Clark said each district would likely continue to run as present.
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