School district merger to benefit both towns

By PATRICK ADRIAN
[email protected]
WINDSOR and WEST WINDSOR, Vt. — The communities of Windsor and West Windsor will prepare to merge into a unified school district, which school officials say will create tremendous educational opportunities for students of both towns. 

Residents in Windsor and West Windsor passed the proposed merger at their annual town meetings on Tuesday. Windsor residents passed the proposal with 65 percent of the total vote, with 347 in favor, 153 opposed and 30 non-votes. West Windsor residents passed the proposal by a vote of 243 to 138.

Superintendent David Clark, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, said he was pleased and  thankful to the voters for the outcome, and credited the Act 46 Merger Committee’s work for voters being informed on Meeting Day.

“The turnout [by voters] indicated a strong interest in the issue, and the overwhelming support points ts to good information being distributed and the committee’s ability to handle questions from taxpayers and residents,” said Clark.

The unified district will go into effect on July 1, 2019, at the end of the 2018-19 school year. The district will total about 648 students by combining 123 students in West Windsor with 525 students in Windsor.  Windsor and West Windsor will share costs to operate the two existing schools, Albert Bridge Elementary in West Windsor (K-6, 58 students) and The Windsor School (Pre-K, K-12, 525 students in K-12). Windsor’s district budget is $8,613,224 for 2018-19 and West Windsor’s is approximately $2.9 million, though the combined cost projects to be less than the two combined. The total budget also projects to lower annually as West Windsor’s tuition to 7-12 grade students attending out of district schools is phased out.

Assets and debts from both districts will be absorbed by the unified district, with exception of West Windsor’s remaining debt service, approximately $595,000, which West Windsor is scheduled to pay off by 2015. Windsor has no long term debt.

Though the majority of students in the district would come from Windsor, the committee decided upon an equal representation from each community on the unified school board.  Each community would elect three representatives to the six-member board. 

The committee could have made the number of representatives proportional to the town’s student population but wanted to have a true, equal partnership,said committee chair Amy McMullen.

“We want to build this partnership on trust and knowing that we’’ll be working together,” McMullen said.

McMullen said that with six members split-votes will happen.  But her experience supervisory union board – 12 total members equally proportioned between four towns – taught her that when split votes occur, the members work harder to reach a resolution.

McMullen said she was not certain whether Windsor voters would pass the proposal.  A number of Windsor residents had criticized how the merger would disproportionately favor the West Windsor community in terms of cost. 

West Windsor currently spends a rate of $19,266 per pupil, whereas Windsor’s per pupil spending rate is  $12,997.  Once the districts merge the towns will share costs evenly.  The recalculated per pupil spending rate would be $14,192 per pupil. The unified rate would be $2,000  more that Windsor spends now, but reduces West Windsor’s rate by $5,000.

To illustrate the tax difference on a $150,000 home, Windsor residents would pay an additional $65 in property taxes in 2019-20 while West Windsor residents would see a reduction of $885.

Part of West Windsor’s higher district cost is because it does not have a school for grades 7-12 and pays tuition for students to choose a school outside the district. 

While the unified district will phase out that school choice for West Windsor students by 2024, a grandfather clause exempts West Windsor students already enrolled in other schools. Also exempt are  West Windsor’s current sixth grade students, 8 at present.

But McMullen points out that this merger is about the long term sustainability of education.

The partnership will allow teachers from both districts to collaborate to strengthen overall instruction and curriculum across the grades, McMullen said.  Larger class sizes at the middle and high school level will open opportunities for courses and programs that were less feasible when lacking enough student participants.  Committee members say that programs could attract other district later to join the union.

“We have to look beyond next week,” McMullen said, “We need to look further down the road.  We have to look at all the opportunities we will have instead of worrying about what we might be losing.  I don’t think we are losing anything.”