Editor’s note: This article is by Lisa McCormack, of the Stowe Reporter, in which it was first published July 23, 2015.
Study changes in how schools are governed? The Stowe School Board is going all-out.
Board members said Monday they will carefully weigh all options under Act 46, a new law that’s pressuring school districts to merge.
“The Stowe School District wants to make sure no stone is unturned when it comes to the implications of Act 46,” said board chairwoman Cam Page.
Some options are a long shot. Others are probably unfeasible. But the school board wants to make sure it can tell Stowe residents it considered every possibility.
Act 46, passed in April, calls on the state’s 277 school districts to merge into districts with at least 900 pupils — considerably larger than most Vermont districts are now. The idea is to share resources and expertise, save money, and improve educational opportunities for students.
The law gives districts a few years to move voluntarily into larger districts, but empowers the State Board of Education in 2019 to restructure districts it believes need to make changes and have not.
Rather than merge with its neighbors Morristown and Elmore, the Stowe School Board decided earlier this month to petition the state government to allow it to form “an alternative governance structure.” The goal is to keep Stowe a standalone school district, with its own budget and its own school board.
One option would be to remain part of the Lamoille South Supervisory Union, along with Elmore and Morristown, and continue to share resources and administration costs.
Other options are likely to arise as details of the new law are hammered out, board members said.
In the last school year, Stowe had 726 students; Morristown had 793, including most of Elmore’s 115 students.
If Stowe decides eventually to seek standalone status, it will need to persuade the Vermont Agency of Education and the State Board of Education that it makes sense. The deadline for that is June 30, 2017.
School board members believe they’re more likely to win that approval if they can show that they explored every option and found none to be beneficial to students or likely to save money.
Merging options
The state has yet to determine the exact terms under which a school district could avoid a merger, so Stowe must keep open, for now, the option of merging with Morristown and Elmore.
School board member Richard Bland wants to look at merging with other school districts, as well. At a board meeting July 9, he asked school Superintendent Tracy Wrend to develop a spreadsheet showing the tax implications of all possible merger arrangements.
Wrend spent the past two weeks crunching the numbers.
She looked at possible partnerships with schools from Enosburg to Northfield to Richford. Some mergers would cause Stowe’s school taxes to rise substantially. Others would result in small savings.
After reviewing the spreadsheet Monday, school board members decided that none of the options would work for Stowe because of geographical distance and other factors.
Still, Bland isn’t ready to concede that merging with Morristown and Elmore would be Stowe’s only option if the state doesn’t approve its standalone plan.
Statewide, supervisory unions are likely to dissolve or change as a result of Act 46, and that could open new merger possibilities for Stowe, he said.
Bland is particularly interested in Wolcott, which is part of the Orleans West Supervisory Union. It offers school choice to students in grades 9 through 12 because it doesn’t have a high school. A minority of Wolcott students attend Stowe High School.
No one has broached the idea with the Wolcott School Board, which doesn’t meet again until late August.
However, a Stowe merger with a school district outside the Lamoille South Supervisory Union is unlikely to win state approval, even if the other town is interested, according to Wrend.
Under the new law, school districts are encouraged to merge with their neighbors, especially when not doing so would hurt one or more of those neighbors, Wrend said.
Further, if a school wanted to leave a supervisory union, it would need approval from every school board in the union.
And, if Stowe were to ask another school district to merge, it would have to be able to physically accommodate all its students. If not, it would have to build new schools to accommodate them, Wrend said.
For now, Wrend will draft a form letter that could be sent to any school district, inviting its board members to discuss merger options with Stowe.
“Our first priority remains looking at an alternative governance structure, and looking at what a merged district with our existing partners would look like,” said board member Emily Bradbury.
Elmore, Morristown
Morristown and Elmore won’t decide how to respond to Act 46 until later this fall.
The towns are looking at forming a “unified union school district” to help control rising school taxes in Elmore.
Tax rates have increased 75 percent in the past four years, making a merger necessary, according to Elmore School Board members. A merger would help stabilize taxes in Elmore while ensuring steady enrollment numbers for Morristown, where most Elmore students attend school.
The Elmore and Morristown boards are drafting articles for a merger; they’re subject to approval by the State Board of Education. The merger plan would go to voters in both communities Nov. 3; a majority vote in each town would be needed for approval.
However, under the new law, because an Elmore-Morristown district would have fewer than 900 students, they’d need another merger partner.
If Stowe’s not interested, they would have to look elsewhere, or seek approval for an alternative governance structure.
Both boards want to wait until after the vote Nov. 3 to decide which direction to take.
No benefits for Stowe
A forced merger wouldn’t offer any benefits to Stowe, according to the preliminary numbers.
Several models show school taxes would rise anywhere from 26 to 43 percent in the next six years.
Members of the Stowe, Elmore and Morristown school boards all say Act 46 isn’t likely to save any money in their districts, which have been collaborating for years, share many services, and turn out well-prepared students.
Instead, they say, the law is geared toward school districts that spend well above the state average, with poor results.
They are concerned that, after a merger, communities will have less control over their school budgets. The new, larger districts will have one school board, with representatives from each merged town. How many representatives could be based on population or other factors; that hasn’t been defined.
The board overseeing each merged district will prepare a single budget for all schools in the district.
