Barnard
The vote followed a vigorous debate from the Town Hall floor that revealed the town was divided over the issue but left the distinct impression that residents are fiercely protective of pre-K-6 Barnard Academy and not wanting to see students sent to elementary schools in neighboring towns. Under the consolidation proposals, Barnard Academy would serve pre-K through fourth-grade students; fifth- and sixth-graders would be sent to schools out of town.
“It’s been a huge time commitment and stress in my life,” Heather Little, a School Board member who stepped down after serving one year of her two-year term, said in an interview following the school portion of Town Meeting. “I’m ready to go back and be a mom again.”
Also stepping down was School Board Chairman Chip Davis, who had two years remaining on a three-year term, and Kim White, who did not seek re-election following her one-year term. All three were succeeded by other nominees, including Andy Cole, a former Barnard School Board member.
White, who said she wasn’t seeking another term in order to focus on her personal training business, acknowledged in an interview after the meeting that school consolidation “was definitely a controversial time. I can’t say it wasn’t a factor” in her decision not to run again. White, who has two children at Barnard Academy and said she voted in favor of the proposal that would have consolidated Barnard’s district into a newly formed district with schools in Woodstock, Pomfret, Bridgewater, Reading and Killington, said “we did the best we could with the circumstances we were dealt with.”
Davis did not publicly state his reason for not finishing the three-year term to which he was elected last year, other than to say he had “served three years” — including a prior two-year term — and to emphasize it was in the voters’ financial interest to approve the school consolidation plan.
“I don’t like Act 46, but we have to comply with it,” he said, warning the audience that there would be a “significant increase in your taxes if you vote no.”
Davis did not return a call seeking comment.
School Board members, who have been wrestling with the school consolidation plan for the better part of the last year, sat stone-faced for more than an hour as numerous voters stood to make impassioned arguments against joining the proposed Windsor Central Unified Union School District.
“I challenge everyone here to demand to accountability,” Selectboard member Tim Johnson said, eschewing the use of a microphone because he assured the packed room that he would be speaking loud enough for everyone, including attendees in the balcony, to hear.
“Act 46 is about reducing costs, but spending and property taxes are going up … not one legislator has answered where the money is going.”
While thanking the School Board “for hard work, I know the frustration they are going through,” Johnson blamed lawmakers in Montpelier for causing an exodus of families that is leading to underpopulated local schools that are then forced to consolidate to accommodate the remaining students. This leads to a shrinking tax base and higher taxes, forcing residents out of their homes, he said.
Residents feared that consolidation was opening the door to the eventual closing of Barnard Academy.
Said resident Margaret Edwards, standing from the front row and turning to face the room and School Board: “We don’t want our school to close, the possibility horrifies us … everyone in this community is invested in this school.”
Feeling the brunt of the room’s frustration, state lawmakers attending the meeting said that the Legislature is grappling with the state’s declining student population.
“The big challenge is our declining population,” said Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, a Woodstock resident. “We’ve gone from 110,000 students to 80,000 students.”
Rep. Susan Buckholz, D-Hartford, who is in her first term as a state representative, said she “would not have voted for” Act 46 had she been in office at the time.
Asked if she saw the Legislature bending to pushback from local communities in implementing the law, she told the assembled voters that “you all create the will. Come up and make a lot of noise.”
Other Barnard residents warned that rejecting the proposal would only leave the town in even a weaker position to manage the fate of its school.
“If you don’t merge, 8 percent of the budget is gone,” resident James Mills said. “That is not a number I would want the new school board to deal with … if we’re not there for the discussion, we are already behind” other schools. (Barnard would get two seats on the new 18-member district board but none under rejection of the proposal.)
Dwigth Doton echoed Mills, explaining, “We’re not voting on Act 46. Act 46 is the law. If you vote in favor of the merger, it gives us a voice on the board. If it’s voted down, we don’t get a voice … I’m voting for the merger.”
Incoming School Board member Bryce Sammel was present at the meeting. The third new member of the School Board, Carin Ewing Park, was away and was nominated by a representative from the floor.
Meanwhile, voters approved by a voice vote from the floor the School Board’s proposed budget of $1.2 million which, if approved, will result in spending $15,564 per equalized pupil, which the board said is almost 4 percent higher than the current year’s.
According to estimates prepared by the Windsor Central Supervisory Union, the Barnard Academy school budget will result in an education tax rate of 76 cents per $100 of assessed property value, or $1,900 for a property valued at $250,000.
Factoring in taxes collected to pay for Woodstock Union High School, which Barnard students attend, the total rate will be $1.48 per $100 of assessed property value, a 15 cent decrease from the current year’s total education tax rate of $1.63. A property owner whose home is valued at $250,000 would see a $375 decrease in the education tax bill, from $4,075 to $3,700.
On the town side, votes approved the Selectboard’s proposed $1.8 million town and highway budget, up from the $1.6 million voters approved last year.
Total highway spending is proposed at about $1 million, an increase of $77,000.
Total municipal spending is proposed at $766,000, up from $610,000 last year, according to the Selectboard’s proposed budget plan, of which $547,000 is to be raised from taxes.
The debate over school consolidation turned otherwise routine warnings into one of the most impassioned Town Meetings in recent memory.
But it didn’t seem that big a deal to Floyd Van Alstyne, who has missed only three Barnard town meetings since he began attending in 1941.
Today’s town meetings, he noted, are “cut and dry” affairs of a couple hours breaking for the traditional lunch of hot dogs and beans to raise scholarship money for Barnard students attending college.
Back when he began attending Town Meeting, when the “total expenditures for school was a little over $10,000 … we’d be doing darn well if we got done before milking time,” Van Alstyne said.
Correction
A statement at Barnard Town Meeting in support of merging Barnard School District into the proposed Windsor Central Unified Union School District was made by Dwight Doton. Doton argued that voting in favor of the proposal would ensure the town has representation on the board. An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the comments to another person.
