Hartford
The 64-year-old Arnold, who has run a day care in Hartford with his wife since 2002, has been a consistent critic of the School Board since he left office in 2012. During meetings, he frequently avails himself of the public comment section to ask questions, or challenge members on their decisions and policies.
Merrill, in his mid-50s and a director of information services at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, was an attorney for much of his career, and also is on the Planning Commission. He is seeking his third full term on the School Board and said he’d like to be able to continue the board’s current path.
Arnold has been critical of “policy governance,” an unusual structure embraced by the Hartford School Board and a handful of others in Vermont, which is meant to provide a more clear distinction between the day-to-day leadership role of the superintendent and the big-picture view of the School Board.
Arnold said the policy, which requires School Board members to “support” the majority decision of the board, prevents members from speaking openly and honestly to the public.
The “support” clause has particular meaning for Merrill, who over the past two months has found himself in the minority on two key votes of the School Board.
Merrill abstained on an otherwise-unanimous vote to present Town Meeting voters with a $1.46 million bond to renovate the parking lot around the district’s high school, middle school and career center.
“The bond was not the one that I wanted to go for now,” he said. “But it was a decision of the board as a whole. There’s an obligation under our rules that I should be supporting the board’s decisions, and I do.”
Merrill voted in favor of a $5 million bond to renovate the 104-year-old Wilder School, which has a variety of health and safety issues and which houses the Regional Alternative Program for students with behavioral problems from throughout the Upper Valley. The proposal was defeated on a 3-2 vote, and the board in January unanimously approved a $275,000 proposal to address the most egregious problems, including an inadequate heating system.
Merrill said that if he is re-elected, he would use a skill set that he honed during his legal career to continue to push to address the problem.
“I’m not going to say ‘one and done’ and we walk away. I’m very glad to know that, come a nice cold January, there will be heat in the building and the pipes won’t freeze. But that’s not the only issue that the building faces and we owe it to these children … to do for them what we would do for any student,” Merrill said.
Arnold echoed arguments made by School Board members Paula Nulty and Nancy Russell and School Board Chairwoman Lori Dickerson when they voted against the Wilder School bond.
“Mr. Merrill wanted to rush a $5 million renovation bond to vote without having held any community meetings or extended investigations into alternative project proposals,” Arnold said. “I believe large debt projects such as the Wilder School renovation should go through a six-month process of evaluation.”
Merrill acknowledged the problems associated with estimates that proved to be far below actual costs for a 2013 bond-funded effort to renovate the Wendell A. Barwood Arena, but said the district has built up a strong track record since then, and would be very unlikely to make the same mistake again.
“I have a lot of faith at this point in the superintendent and the business manager’s ability to collect the appropriate information, to collect the estimates and so forth and bring it forward,” Merrill said.
Arnold disagreed.
“I believe that alternatives and other options should be looked at on multimillion-dollar projects. … Mr. Merrill has consistently supported a single-option approach. … I believe that looking at options helps us save money,” Arnold said.
Arnold said that, if elected, he would focus on issues including “expanding our school district, bringing in foreign students, allowing student evaluations to affect teacher evaluations, raising private funding for special initiatives, teacher performance bonuses and an analysis of school capacity versus current lower enrollments.”
Merrill said he took pride in the district’s achievements, including that “we’ve dealt with much, if not all, of the incredible backlog of maintenance,” and shrinking the educational performance gap between elementary school-aged students from different economic backgrounds.
“The gap that is present almost all around the state isn’t there, because they have worked so hard with the families,” he said.
Arnold was one of two Democratic primary challengers who failed to unseat state Reps. Kevin Christie and Gabrielle Lucke from their Windsor 4-2 seats in August; in 2015, he lost a bid for the School Board against Nulty in a three-way race that included then-incumbent Eric Michaels.
Following three consecutive years of heavy competition for Hartford municipal and school races, this will be a relatively quiet election year, with Merrill’s seat the only contested race in town. Selectboard Chairman Dick Grassi and Selectboard Vice Chairwoman Rebecca White face no challengers to their re-election, while Nulty has announced she will not seek another term on the School Board.
Nulty said on Monday that she liked serving on the School Board, but that she felt somewhat removed from the day-to-day happenings in the district, and that family obligations were pulling her away from the role.
“I just liked having a closer tie to the kids and the teachers,” she said. “That’s where things actually happen. … When you’re a couple of steps removed from the kids, there’s a certain amount of joy you miss out on.”
Nulty cast the sole opposing vote to the School Board’s proposed $37.4 million budget because, she said, she didn’t have full confidence that the district budget is being managed optimally.
“I didn’t think I had the right to ask voters for another increase on their property taxes,” she said. “We owed them something a little more concrete before we did that.”
She later sent a clarifying email that read, in part, “I am disturbed our enrollment continues to drop, costs rise, and statistically I have not seen academic improvements.”
Floral designer and former Hartford teacher Michelle Boleski, who operates a floral design business which she started in 2006, is running unopposed for Nulty’s seat.
On Monday, Feb. 27, the town will host a Budgets and Candidates Night, followed by Community Day on March 4, and Australian ballot voting on Tuesday, March 7.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.
Correction
Michelle Boleski’s floral design business, which she started in 2006 and moved to White River Junction in 2008, is not a retail shop. An earlier version of this story incorrectly described her business and when she moved it to town.