Voters in five central Vermont towns said “yes” on Tuesday to a ballot measure that will make it easier to close schools in their 1,200-student district. The vote to change Washington Central Unified Union School District’s articles of agreement — a legal document ratified in 2018 when Berlin, Calais, East Montpelier, Middlesex and Worcester merged — passed by a margin of 1,711 votes to 1,365.
Under the original articles of agreement, closing a school required a majority vote of the residents of the town where it’s located. But the newly approved procedure gives the entire Washington Central electorate the opportunity to weigh in on any future school-closure decisions. That means that an individual town no longer has the power to determine the fate of its local school. Under the new process, the school board would also have a say in any school closures.
The board scheduled the vote for August 11 after a group of community members calling themselves the Sustainable Schools Coalition submitted a petition signed by more than 500 residents calling for the change.
Coalition members, primarily parents with young children, argued that the quality of education has declined in the district’s six schools as enrollment dropped and resources were spread thinner. They said that a more collective decision-making process for school closure made sense. Opponents of the change contended that changing the articles of agreement was akin to breaking a promise made when the district formed that each town would get to determine whether its local school closed.
In a statement following the vote, board chair Diane Nichols-Fleming wrote that she recognized “the outcome of this vote will be received in many different ways across our community” and emphasized the board’s commitment to all of its students.
On Wednesday, members of the Sustainable Schools Coalition, which organized a handful of community meetings ahead of the vote, wrote in a statement that they were “proud of the parent-led movement that supported this ballot initiative and grateful to see the amendment approved.”
Still, the group wrote, “we also recognize that these are difficult, deeply personal conversations with real impacts for our students and communities.” Members said they were committed to continuing to have conversations about the future of the district “and keeping students at the center as we work collectively as one district to create the strongest possible educational system for our kids.”
Ross Andrews, a Calais resident who fought the change, said he didn’t see the vote as a loss because it had invigorated residents in Calais and Worcester — the two least populous towns in the district — to advocate for their schools. Voter turnout in the two towns was high, Andrews said, and he and others recently formed an organization, Rural Schools Rising Vermont, to propose alternatives to closing small elementary schools in Washington Central. A group of residents is also exploring the option of forming a homeschooling cooperative, he said.
“We’re very excited and pleased to see so much energy on this side of the fence to fight for our towns,” Andrews said.
Margaret Maclean, a steering committee member of the Vermont Rural School Community Alliance — a grassroots advocacy group that has lobbied the legislature to protect small, rural schools — wrote in an email that Washington Central’s situation is “a case study of what not to do.”
“The burden of budget cuts has to be shared throughout the system rather than jumping to a short-term fix that creates winners and losers, pits neighbors against each other and weakens the district for the future,” she wrote.
The viability of small elementary schools will likely be a hotly debated topic in the lead-up to the November election. Gov. Phil Scott, who is running for a sixth term, has advocated for bigger, consolidated school districts as a way to save money and lower property taxes. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amanda Janoo, meanwhile, has expressed support for preserving local schools and pooling public funds to transform them into social-services hubs — a model known as Community Schools.
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