WINDSOR — Representatives from Group 8 school districts met Wednesday night at Windsor High School to outline the school merger decision process that will demand their attention for the foreseeable future. At its first official meeting, the study committee elected Bill Yates of the Mount Ascutney School District as chairman and unofficially decided to weigh votes based on each town’s total population.

The committee is one of 18 created under Act 170, which the state legislature passed in May. Each committee must determine whether its school districts would benefit from merging.

The representatives for Group 8 school districts include Colin Butler from Hartford, Anthony Wilson from Hartland, Yates from Mount Ascutney, Keri Bristow from Mountain Views, Peter DuBois from Pittsfield and John Arrison from Weathersfield. Mountain Views sent a stand-in for Bristow and DuBois was unable to attend.

Led by facilitator Dana Brown, a former Massachusetts Principal of the Year, the five representatives gathered before about a dozen in-person attendees — including superintendents from a few of their school districts — as well as a slew of Zoom participants.

The meeting focused on outlining the upcoming process and establishing norms for these monthly gatherings. Before diving into the discussion, committee members voted to adopt Robert’s Rules of Order, a widely used procedure manual that gives everyone on a council the opportunity to speak and the right to know the topic of discussion. Educators who attended the meeting spoke about its cooperative, collegial nature.

“It’s good to hear that people are willing to come together to talk about [the merger],” said Albert Bridge School Principal Jennifer Aldridge. Her school belongs to Mount Ascutney School District, making Yates her representative.

Committee members will not use their votes to decide whether their school districts merge; their constituents ultimately hold that power. Between now and September 2027, the six representatives will develop a plan to present to their towns at school board meetings in early 2028. All town residents can vote on this plan, which will either recommend some version of a merger or suggest that the districts maintain the status quo. Each representative’s vote matters for the year-long process of creating that plan, not for its implementation.

Committee members spent most of an hour discussing how their votes should work during the process, debating whether to weight them based on the number of students in each representative’s district or on broader census data. Though they didn’t officially vote on it — opting to wait until DuBois and Bristow could attend — the five committee members at the table agreed that their votes should be weighted based on town population, not the number of students they represent.

“As school district representatives, we’re not representing parents and students; we’re representing every citizen of the community that’s electing us,” Butler told the Valley News.

After watching the session, Hartford Superintendent Caty Sutton called the merger a “wait-and-see scenario.”

“There’s so much more information to gather and understand before anything substantive can really be discussed,” she said.

In the meantime, Sutton and her fellow superintendents have plenty of other issues on their desks. Hartford is dealing with a $5 million budget reduction that could force a 25% reduction in their staff, along with mandated quarterly PCB testing (with little funding) and changes to its Medicaid reimbursement system.

Vermont school districts have begun meetings across the state to prepare for March 2028 town votes on mergers. Rather than mandating mergers, the law defers the choice to the towns within school districts.

But choosing not to merge may come with consequences for districts with fewer than 750 enrolled students. If those have not voted to merge with others by July 2028, Vermont’s Board of Education can decide on mergers for them.

Hartland, Mount Ascutney and Weathersfield school districts all have fewer than 750 students, giving them an incentive to merge that Hartford and Mountain Views do not share.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Aldridge said, “which causes stress.”