Harwood board chooses leaders, discusses Vt. ed reform pushback, explores school consolidation
March 18, 2025 | By Lisa ScagliottiAt its post-election organizational meeting last week, the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board re-elected its leaders, appointed members to officer roles for the coming year and looked ahead to multiple long-term efforts that could spell significant changes for the future.
Warren member Ashley Woods and Duxbury member Cindy Senning were re-elected unanimously to the chair and vice chair positions, respectively.
Woods was just elected on March 4 to a second three-year term. “I have learned a ton in the three years I have been on this board,” Woods said. “I’m hoping that the three years of experience is a good beginning for the next round which is going to be unique and different because of our federal situation, our state situation and how all that’s going to weigh in here. I look forward to another year with Cindy at my side.”
Moretown board member Steve Rosenberg volunteered to be the board’s new finance officer and newly elected Fayston member Rebecca Baruzzi stepped up as assistant finance officer. Those roles involve bi-monthly check-ins at the district’s central office to review warrants which essentially entails looking over invoices and payments the district is making in the course of doing business.
Other board members who have performed that task offered to walk Rosenberg and Baruzzi through the process as they learn it.
Waitsfield member Bobbi Rood, who was just re-elected to her second term, was named recording secretary for the board.
Also just elected to serve the remaining two years on his term, Waterbury member Corey Hackett said he would like to continue as the Harwood school board’s representative on the Central Vermont Career Center School Board; the board approved that choice unanimously.
Other housekeeping items at this time of year include designating school administrators in each building as truant officers.
The board also voted unanimously to name as its newspapers of record for publishing public notices the weekly Valley Reporter and five-day per week Barre-Montpelier Times Argus print papers, along with the Waterbury Roundabout online news outlet.
Rosenberg commented the district is fortunate to have multiple local news sources. “More and more of the country is becoming news deserts,” Rosenberg said. “These local papers really provide a couple valuable services. One is to keep the community informed about important local issues like the school budget. Can you imagine what this would be like if we didn’t have any papers? The other important function is to allow community members to voice their opinions. A lot of them I totally disagree with, but it’s important for all of us to not feed just within our little bubble.”
Woods agreed, adding that having local news covering school issues makes school leaders think about the information they want the community to know. “They help us. They ask the right questions of us. They email us and ask us questions,” she said. “They’re not only delivering a message, they’re prodding us to bring it to them. It helps. It makes the work get done.”
Recruiting Waterbury, Duxbury members
The board met with just nine of 14 members last week. Two were absent but three seats currently are vacant after the March 4 election failed to attract candidates to two open seats representing Waterbury and one from Duxbury. Board leaders encouraged members to try to help recruit possible candidates for the openings so that the board can make appointments by its April 16 meeting. Appointees would serve until the March 2026 election.
Harwood Superintendent Mike Leichliter last week shared a letter seeking applicants for the vacant seats by March 28. The appointment process involves the town select boards that interview candidates and make a recommendation to the school board.
Late last week, Dan Roscioli confirmed that he intends to submit an application for an appointment. Roscioli served on the school board after being appointed last April but did not file to get on the March election ballot to continue. “Unfortunately, the timing of a family emergency prevented [me from] turning in signatures,” he said. “I hope to represent Waterbury for another year.”
Elizabeth Brown, another Waterbury appointee to the school board in 2024, also told the Roundabout that she is considering applying to serve another year given that the election did not generate new board members. “I have not drafted the letter yet, but intend to in the next few days,” she said.
Waterbury has four seats on the board compared with the other five towns – Duxbury, Fayston, Moretown, Waitsfield and Warren – that each have two board seats. Three of Waterbury’s seats were filled by appointment in 2024.
Assessing proposed state education reform
Woods and Senning then updated the board on efforts among members of multiple school boards in the region including Stowe and Elmore who are looking to collaborate on lobbying the legislature regarding Gov. Phil Scott’s proposed plan to overhaul public preK-12 education in the state. State lawmakers are digging to the proposal that aims to affect major structural changes to school governance while attempting to trim costs to reduce the burden on Vermonters’ property taxes.
Harwood board leaders say they so far don’t see much to like in the plan or the draft legislation recently introduced to implement it.
“We found it jarring to say the least,” Woods said. “It’s a monster move away from how we do things in Vermont. It ends local control as we know it.”
Woods and Senning have already written letters to the governor and the district’s legislators expressing their concerns. “We are not against reformation at all – we are for it. But it has to be done in a reasonable and measured way and the time needs to be taken to do it right,” Woods said.
Board leaders said they object to the plan’s design to group all Vermont schools into just five districts. They also are critical that it doesn’t address several major education cost drivers such as deferred building maintenance and the costs of health care for staff. They also object to its proposal to end the state Board of Education, “which is basically the checks and balance on the Agency of Education and everybody,” Woods said.
The impetus for change came in 2024 after education property tax rates jumped by double digits and many districts – including Harwood – had to hold multiple votes before their 2025-26 budgets were approved. “The mandate that came from voters was to find a better way to fund education,” Woods said. “It’s about money. It’s about taxes, it’s about how we do the funding. It was not about governance change.”
Fayston board member Mike Bishop pushed back somewhat on the criticism. “I’m going to be open-minded to this,” Bishop said, pointing out that Scott is often viewed as the most popular governor in the United States.
“I think that we need to be careful. It’s fine to not necessarily agree with what’s in the plan. I happen to believe that there’s some good stuff in the plan. I also have some concerns about the plan,” he said. “We don’t want to be totally against everything and miss out on being part of the conversation even if we don’t like it.”
Ben Clark from Moretown disagreed. “As a Republican, I voted for this governor and I like this governor, but I don’t like his plan,” he said, adding that he’s read it entirely.
“As Vermonters, we like to have a balanced approach to things but that doesn’t spur a mandate. To me what spurs a mandate are good ideas, and this isn’t a good idea,” Clark said. “The fact that we consolidate things down to a five-district approach doesn’t solve anything.”
Clark said he takes issue with eliminating local school governance. “We would cease to exist… and be replaced by these giant school districts,” he said.
State representatives from the Harwood district are planning a listening session community meeting at Harwood Union High School on March 24, 6-8 p.m., and board leaders urged members to attend.
School consolidation: Narrowing down the options
Finally Woods and Senning set the stage for the board’s March 19 meeting where architects working on proposed new facility configuration scenarios for the district will make a presentation. Architects from TruexCullins in Burlington have been working with a board subcommittee on a list of 15 scenarios to reduce the number of schools in the district from the current seven facilities.
The committee and consultants have narrowed the options down to six (with a seventh being keeping the status quo). Woods said she hopes for the board to shrink the list further and to then proceed with a more detailed evaluation of 3-4 options.
Woods during the March 12 meeting was careful to emphasize that the exercise is in its earliest stages and much work lies ahead including community involvement before any decisions can be made. “Everyone needs to remember that all this work we are doing with Truex Cullins is exploratory. Nothing is decided. No school has been chosen to be closed, nor have we chosen yet whether or not we’re going to close any,” Woods said. “And we also don’t know the timeframe.”
Such moves will involve detailed financial analysis, community input, and likely new spending to modify school facilities that remain to accommodate consolidation.
“It’s a ways out, potentially years out,” Woods said.
On Monday, Woods, Senning and several board members amplified this message, sending a letter to Harwood staff, families and community members on the district’s website, on Front Porch Forum and to the local newspapers to address what they say are rumors around the notion of school closures on the horizon.
The state-level conversations that include consolidation are one driver, they said, with an eye toward keeping any such decisions as local as possible. Still, any such moves will involve many steps.
“Closing even one school involves measured steps, board meetings, public meetings, and ultimately voting on funding a bond for the upfront costs of construction at the other district schools, to be able to absorb students from closed schools.” the letter states. “There is one option to just pass a bond for the $20-plus-million in deferred maintenance at district schools and avoid any closures. This plan is as viable as any and also saves a lot of money. There is no way this process will be accomplished quickly, but we must start now to retain local control over this decision.”
The school board meets on Wednesday starting at 6 p.m. in the library at Harwood Union High School. The meeting is also available via Zoom for people to participate and on the district’s YouTube channel and Mad River Television.
TruexCullins architects will share their presentation that focuses on six scenarios:
Four suggest closing Fayston and Moretown schools.
One suggests closing Brookside, Fayston and Moretown schools.
One suggests closing Brookside, Fayston, Moretown and Warren schools.
At last week’s board meeting, board leaders shared that they along with Building Use and Visioning Committee Chair JB Weir, Superintendent Leichliter and district Finance Manager Lisa Estler met with staff at Fayston Elementary School last week “to answer questions and quell some of their stress” around the facility discussions. They also plan to meet with Moretown Elementary School staff on March 25, Woods said.
Weir said board members aim to be as open and transparent about this thorny process as possible. “We will look for input,” he said. “This process will not exist in a vacuum… we’re going to do it carefully, and we’re going to do it right.”
Find the work of the School Board’s Building Use and Visioning Committee online here. Committee meetings are recorded and posted on the district’s YouTube channel. The slide presentation for Wednesday’s School Board meeting is online here. The board agenda with the Zoom link is here. Read the school board leaders’ letter regarding the Building Use and Visioning Committee’s work with TruexCullins here.