Royalton
On Oct. 18, the State Board of Education will consider whether to sign off on a proposal that would allow the Rochester and Stockbridge school districts to merge into a single K-6 district with choice for older students beginning in July 2018.
In the current draft of the Rochester-Stockbridge merger, the proposed district would be governed by a board with three members from each town; under the Articles of Agreement, the Rochester School Board is required to “seek to sell the Dandelion Day Care building prior to June 30, 2018.”
The study committee projects that a merger would save money, though the situation is muddied because laws are changing to eliminate funding for so-called “phantom students,” which will disproportionately hurt Rochester. The merger also will allow the two districts to keep about $155,000 in state grants that would be lost in a non-merge scenario.
During a meeting on Tuesday evening at Stockbridge Central School, a study committee made up of representatives from both towns is expected to finalize the proposal to bring to the State Board of Education. If it is approved there, school officials plan to send it to voters in both towns by the end of November.
The second critical date in the White River Valley is Oct. 24, when voters in Bethel and Royalton will decide whether to merge to form a single K-12 district that would send middle school students to Bethel and high school students to Royalton.
Rochester resident Shannon Walker said when her 16-year-old son, Troy Walker, was asked to choose a high school outside of Rochester this year, he elected to bypass the closer Whitcomb Jr./Sr. High School in Bethel in favor of a 35-minute commute to South Royalton School, in part because the family anticipates that the merger will happen.
“Bethel is really the closest,” Walker said. “But Troy is a junior and we want him to feel at home when he graduates. With the upcoming merger that we’re expecting, we thought that would be the best option.”
South Royalton Principal Dean Stearns said the school also has welcomed five tuition students from Whitcomb this year from parents with similar concerns about multiple transitions, which he said are well-founded.
“I think it can be a problem, at least initially in a school year,” Stearns said. “When you walk in the door, you don’t know everyone in the building. It’s not comfortable to you. The schedule is different, and the expectations are different.”
The third critical date in the immediate future will be Nov. 7, when voters in Chelsea and Tunbridge will consider a proposal to merge their two existing districts into a K-8 district that would close Chelsea’s high school in favor of choice for high school students. After an earlier proposal failed in Tunbridge in June by a narrow 164-160 vote, school officials could have moved forward with a revote, but instead worked to come up with changes that would make it more palatable to local voters.
“We decided not to go that route because we wanted to listen to our community and deal with the issues that were raised,” said Kathy Galluzzo, chairwoman of the Tunbridge School Board.
Under the new plan, a future joint school board is prevented from closing a local school without a majority vote within the town in which the school is located. In another major change, instead of moving forward with a merged middle school in 2018, the new board instead “will fully explore a merged middle school for the 2019-20 school year.”
Those changes didn’t sit well with members of the State Board of Education, who called the new proposal a “disappointment” and “very watered down” before ultimately approving them on a split 4-2 vote during a Sept. 20 meeting, according to meeting minutes. State Board of Education member John Carroll, who joined with John O’Keefe to cast the dissenting votes, said he did “not see compromises but rather retreats from what was visualized by statute.”
Carroll suggested the state would be better served by forcing Chelsea and Tunbridge to merge after the Nov. 30 Act 46 deadline passes.
“The one thing they made pretty clear was that it sounded like they’re going to merge us anyway,” Galluzzo said. “They could have the same result and not have to give any tax incentives.”
Vermont Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe also panned the plan, which she said “has no commitment to cost containment or expanded opportunities for children, particularly in Tunbridge,” according to the minutes. Galluzzo said she hopes Tunbridge residents approve the plan.
“I really hope people take time and look the proposal over, talk to us and get all their questions answered. We think it’s a really good plan,” she said. “We don’t have any other options right now for a merger. It’s kind of a last shot.”
Elsewhere in the Supervisory Union, Granville and Hancock school districts have already voted overwhelmingly voted to form a joint non-operating district, while Strafford and Sharon school districts have signaled their intention to continue as standalone districts within the Supervisory Union.
Strafford and Sharon will make their arguments after the Nov. 30 deadline to the State Board of Education.
Haley Dover, a spokeswoman for the Vermont Agency of Education, said in an email on Friday that one of the key questions before the board will be whether there are any nearby districts that would serve as natural merging partners.
“If so, then the State Board will require them to merge if it determines that merger is the best way to create a sustainable structure that can meet the goals of Act 46,” Dover wrote. “Obviously we have no idea what the State Board will decide, but looking quickly at the map it’s at least reasonable to speculate that there are not any districts of the same structure that are near enough.”
School officials Chelsea, Tunbridge, Stockbridge, Rochester, Bethel and Royalton have various meetings scheduled in the coming weeks to discuss future plans with the public.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.