Appointment fills career center board

June 14, 2022  |  By David Delcore | Times Argus Staff Writer 

BARRE — The Central Vermont Career Center School Board notched another night of “firsts” — its first executive session and its first appointment — before agreeing to meet one more time before Vermont’s newest school district is launched on July 1. 

As a result of one decision made last week, the virtual session scheduled for June 20 will be the board’s first with a full complement of members. In March, voters in the 18 towns served by the career center collectively approved the creation of the new school district. Four of the board’s 10 members were supposed to be elected then, and three of them actually were chosen in “at-large” elections. However, a pair of write-in campaigns came up short of the statutory requirement leaving a vacancy that the board filled on June 6. 

The board interviewed two applicants and then met privately in executive session to choose the at-large representative from the Washington Central Unified Union School District. The board picked Middlesex resident Terri Steele over Adam Rosen, of East Montpelier, in a cordial contest. Steele, a construction manager for a telecommunications company, brings an interesting perspective to the board because her son, a 2020 graduate of U-32 Middle and High School, is a product of the Barre-based career center. Steel rounds out a board that includes at-large representatives from the Barre, Harwood, and Montpelier-Roxbury school districts, as well as appointed representatives from the boards of each of those districts, Washington Central, Twinfield, and Cabot.

Jody Emerson is director of the career center and soon will be superintendent of the new school district that will focus exclusively on career technical education in central Vermont. She told board members she has filled out her staff. She has hired Michelle Leeman from the business office at the Barre Unified Union School District to serve as the career center district's business manager; Kelly Beliveau, a paraeducator at U-32, has been hired as an administrative assistant. In addition, three instructional positions are in the process of being filled, Emerson reported: an instructor for a new design fabrication program, a new digital media arts instructor, and a plumbing and heating instructor position.

The board agreed it will handle policy development as a group but will appoint three committees — one to handle negotiations, another to focus on finance and facilities issues, and one on program quality. The center is poised to launch one new program — design and fabrication — in partnership with Norwich University and the Vermont Granite Museum in the fall. 

The shift to an autonomous school district instead of a center that has been governed since its inception by a school board in Barre will occur July 1 and future decisions will be made by representatives of all six sending school districts, voters of all 18 member-towns, or both. 

Eventually, the career center may move from the wing it occupies at Spaulding High School. That idea was the subject of a consultant-led visioning process conducted as discussion of the governance shift proceeded. In the near term, however, the center will remain at Spaulding where it has a new three-to-five-year lease.

Jonathan Young is one of two career center board members from the Harwood Unified Union School District. He briefly reported on the career center board's progress to date at last week's meeting of the HUUSD School Board where he is one of two Warren members. Young said business so far has covered “nuts and bolts” of establishing how the new board will work. “It sure seems like there's a lot of demand for the workers that the career center produces,” Young said. “Everybody is very optimistic about the future of the career center.”

Waterbury Roundabout contributed to this report. It was originally published by The Times Argus.