News

Northeast Windham school districts continue to resist merger plan

By JEFF EPSTEIN
[email protected]
WESTMINSTER, Vt. — The elementary school districts of Athens, Grafton, and Westminster, meeting as required by the Agency of Education to organize a state-mandated consolidated district under Act 46, instead took careful exception to its own agenda and wound up in an indefinite recess.

Westminster’s elected moderator, Fletcher Proctor, chaired the town-meeting styled event in the auditorium of the Bellows Falls Union High School, maintaining order in the audience of about 75 people. 

The meeting first passed by voice acclamation a resolution that any and all actions of the meeting should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the state board of education’s report and order for forced mergers under Act 46. 

A recording secretary and clerk were nominated and elected. 

One of the parliamentary items on the agenda was to “adopt Robert’s or other rules of order, which shall govern the parlimentary procedures of the organizational meeting and all subsequent annual and special meetings of the District.” An amended motion was made to agree to adopt this up to the words “organizational meeting” and then eliminate the rest of the sentence, followed by new language that (not verbatim) any and all actions that may be considered or taken shall not be interpreted as an endorsement of the state board of education’s Report and Order regarding mergers under Act 46.

The amended motion to removed words that could have been deemed acceptance of the union district, and added language that any and all actions of the meeting should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the state board of education’s report and order for forced mergers under Act 46. 

The agenda had no provision for public comments, so the rules were suspended while an amendment to allow that was passed. Several “sense of the meeting” votes were conducted, all in the affirmative by voice acclamation.

One of them was by David Clark of Westminster, the head of the current Windham Northeast Supervisory Union, who declared the battle against the state mandate “an epic struggle for democracy.”

Finally, a motion was made to recess the meeting pending a ruling from the Office of the Attorney General on Act 46 questions under dispute.

A man named Fine made a motion to amend that motion, to “adjourn” the meeting instead of recessing it, but that was controversial. As Westminster board chair David Major and others mentioned, adjournment would require a new 30-day meeting warning to create a new meeting, and that would likely push the date past July 1, the date the new union district was supposed to start.

Given that, said Clark, the AOE might feel empowered to take action itself to force the union district into existence.

Much discussion on this tactical matter continued for several minutes until Fine, the man who made the adjournment motion decided to withdraw it. However, he said, “The state is going to do any damn thing it wants to anyway.”

The business then went back to the motion to recess, which was stated to be based on the U.S. Constitution, Article 10, Clause 1 (but this was apparently mis-stated and intended to mean Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1), which states:  “No state shall … pass any … Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” [usconstitution.net]

The vote passed on unanimous voice acclamation and the meeting immediately recessed.

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