Royalton
Though Superintendent Bruce Labs said it’s far from decided, 10 towns in the White River Valley Supervisory Union tentatively are pursuing a governance structure that would see a handful of mergers between pairs of school districts.
In that scenario, Rochester, where voters rejected a three-town merger last month, would close its middle and high school to form a pre-K to sixth-grade district with Stockbridge, and have school choice for grades seven through 12.
Bethel would operate a middle school and Royalton would operate a high school in their pairing.
Granville and Hancock would pair as a non-operating district, while Chelsea and Tunbridge would form the final pair in a pre-K through eighth-grade district.
Earlier this year, state lawmakers amended Act 46, the 2015 education reform bill that has driven the mergers under threat of imposed consolidations from the State Board of Education. In addition to extending a merger deadline to Nov. 30, the amendments created a new 2-2-1 alternative governance structure for supervisory unions, which would not only allow the four pairings, but would also allow school districts in Strafford and Sharon to maintain their standalone status within the supervisory union.
“It wouldn’t give them tax incentives, but it would allow them to insulate themselves from Act 46 consolidation down the road,” Labs said on Tuesday.
But in order for that idea to gain traction, it first would have to pass an imposing series of hurdles over ground that’s proven to be difficult to navigate — approval from the various school boards, the voting public in the individual towns, and the State Board of Education.
That means that Tunbridge would have to reconsider its late June 164-160 rejection of a merger with Chelsea.
At this point, “just because we’re talking about it doesn’t mean anything,” Labs said.
Kathy Galluzzo, chairwoman of the Tunbridge School Board, said the board learned during a Monday night meeting that it can authorize a revote in Tunbridge, which she personally feels is the best of three options on the table for the community.
A second option, she said, would be to seek approval from the State Board of Education as a standalone district, which would mean that the district would forgo financial merger incentives on offer from the state. In this scenario, the district also would run the risk of being forcefully consolidated by the State Board of Education, which would happen if that body found the Tunbridge District failed to adequately demonstrate that a standalone is the best way to provide a high-quality, cost-effective and equitable education to the children in its district.
The third option facing Tunbridge would be to tweak the language of the proposed merger with Chelsea to make it impossible for a school in either community to be closed without a vote of the people within that community.
The current language allows for the closure of a school on a majority vote of a merged Chelsea-Tunbridge School Board, which would be comprised of three voting members from each town.
Galluzzo said that, while changing the language would assuage fears that some people have shared about the possibility of losing their school, the fears are not well-founded, because both communities agree that both schools should be maintained.
She said that she favored a simple revote because, with the November deadline looming, it could be done relatively quickly and has a reasonable chance of success.
Galluzzo said she felt the measure would be more likely to pass this time, in part because Sharon school officials have publicly indicated they are not interested in merging with Tunbridge, a possibility that was being floated within the Tunbridge community as a possible alternative to the Chelsea proposal.
She said the board is in the process of scheduling a community meeting, and urged members of the public to educate themselves.
“Please come out to meetings or contact your board,” she said. “Just get the information.”
In Royalton, the School Board voted unanimously on Tuesday morning to try to continue to work with Bethel, according to Chairwoman Christine Hudson.
“I think we’re going to get there,” she said. “I think it’s clear this is the best path forward.”
One wrinkle is that, in order to free the districts up to pursue the new concept, Rochester, Bethel and Royalton have to dispense with a “Plan B” that was triggered when Rochester rejected the three-town merger proposal last month (Royalton voters rejected the three-town merger on April 11, then later approved it in early June). The Plan B requires Bethel and Royalton to have another revote on the proposal.
That means Rochester is still tied, at least on paper, to Bethel and Royalton and currently can’t pursue other options for its school and students, Bethel School District Chairwoman Lisa Floyd said. Bethel also wants to have three of the six seats on a proposed school board with Royalton, but under the terms now in place, Royalton would get five to Bethel’s four.
But Floyd said that there’s yet another new wrinkle — the boards had planned to ask the Board of Education to allow it to opt out of Plan B during its monthly meeting in July, but she learned on Tuesday that the state board will not meet in July due to an inability to achieve quorum, which could mean the White River Valley towns need to wait until August to be considered.
“That makes the timeline even more brief for us,” she said.
Haley Dover, a spokeswoman for the Agency of Education, confirmed that the meeting had been canceled because of a lack of quorum.
In the meantime, Floyd said, the Bethel School Board is scheduling a community meeting in the coming weeks to gain input from residents about the new plan.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.