Newbury, Vt.
The fate of the Common is one of three issues that will come before voters next week, even as the State Board of Education mulls over whether to compel the Newbury School District to merge its 140 elementary students into a unified K-12 district that would include the Blue Mountain Union District (Groton, Ryegate and Wells River), the Bradford Elementary School District and the Oxbow Union High School District (which currently serves Newbury and Bradford).
The other two articles on the warning would advise the School Board to fight against the merger, and to create a mechanism that would allow the town to take ownership of the school building in the event that a unified district came into existence and then closed the school.
“These are probably the two most important issues in the town,” Newbury School Board Chairman Paul Jewett said. “The school and the Common. They involve a lot of emotion.”
By the end of November, the State Board of Education is required to make final decisions on whether roughly 95 school districts need to merge to comply with Act 46, a 2015 law that seeks to bring down education costs and improve quality by herding districts into larger, more cost-effective units. As of June, voluntary consolidations had resulted in 118 fewer districts in the state.
Earlier this year, the 95 districts seeking exceptions submitted 44 proposals (many of which encompassed multiple districts) laying out arguments to be left unconsolidated; in June, the Vermont Agency of Education recommended that 18 of those proposals, including the one involving Newbury, be rejected and the districts be compelled to merge.
During a State Board of Education listening session last month, officials from Newbury and Blue Mountain were among the districts who showed up to argue that, for their districts, the benefits of a merger are exaggerated and the harmful impacts ignored.
“Personally I think the State Board of Education and the Legislature should get their heads together and say, ‘This is as far as we need to go,’ ” Jewett said. “I really don’t believe that there’s anything to benefit us in these proposals that say we’re going to take away local control, a local budget and a local board.”
But the recommendation from the Agency of Education said that a loss of local control is not a good enough reason to avoid a consolidation, and urged the board to act in the interests of the broader community, even if it’s at the expense of a town.
“It is also worth noting that a school board is charged with making decisions that are best for its students and its taxpayers. It is understandable that a school board endeavors to implement the will of the community,” reads the agency’s June recommendation. “In contrast, Act 46 and long-standing statutory law require the State Board to decide what is best for the district, the region, and the state … That means the State Board must focus on what is best for the education of the State’s children.”
Some districts threatened with extinction are girding for a possible legal battle with the state. Although Newbury’s impending vote is nonbinding, Jewett said, a definitive vote to fight the merger would make it more likely that the School Board would join other districts in mounting a legal challenge.
Jewett said that the Newbury School Board has heard unambiguously that a large majority of the public is opposed to the merger, and that he expects the vote to bear that out.
One voter who plans to attend the meeting is Riley Harrness, a salesman who says he and his wife, Rachel Harrness, moved to Newbury because they were seeking a small-town vibe.
A big part of that atmosphere comes from the school culture at Newbury Elementary School, where their two young sons are enrolled.
“The principal meets the kids at the door every day and gives them high fives and asks how their day is going,” he said. “I think you would lose that.”
Though there are conflicting views on how the merger might impact the tax rate, Harrness said he’s casting his vote based on what’s best for his children, not his wallet.
Harrness said he has mixed feelings, but is leaning against the merger, because he doesn’t want to see the school become part of a larger, more impersonal structure, and also because he trusts the local officials like Jewett, who have come out against the move.
When consolidation became a possibility, the town and the School Board hired a lawyer to determine who owns the Common, which borders the Village Hall and the Methodist church and has been used for public events since the town’s founding.
The school district owns most of the property; Jewett said that, if the public votes in favor next week, the district will move quickly to sell the Common to the town for one dollar, before the State Board makes its decision.
The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27, in the Newbury Elementary School gym. The three items are scheduled for floor votes, but Jewett said he thought it likely that a ballot vote would be called for during the meeting.
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.