Third time’s the charm: Culver joins HUUSD school board
July 23, 2021 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Scott D. Culver was appointed to the HUUSD School Board to represent Waterbury until the March 2022 election. File photo
For Scott Culver, the third try to get onto the school board was the charm.
At a special meeting of the Harwood Unified Union School Board Wednesday night, Culver was appointed to fill a vacancy to represent Waterbury through the March Town Meeting Day 2022 election.
The board voted 8-3 choosing Culver who was the applicant recommended by the Waterbury Select Board earlier in the week.
Culver ran in March and came in third place for what were two three-year terms on the board. (He won 518 votes behind Michael Frank with 590 and Marlena Tucker Fishman with 578.)
He also applied in April 2020 when there was a vacancy and the board at that time chose to appoint Michael Frank to the position. It was Frank who resigned in June creating this recent opening. Frank was elected in March to a three-year term. He resigned after the board’s last meeting for the school year in June without giving a specific reason for that decision. Contacted this week, Frank declined to discuss his move other than to say stepping down will give him more time to spend with his family.
Culver’s appointment will run until the election next March at which point the voters will choose who will hold the position for the remaining two years for that seat. Culver told the board in his interview on Wednesday that he would be interested to run in March to serve out the rest of the term.
Waterbury has four seats on the HUUSD board. The other members are Caitlin Hollister whose term ends in 2022, Kelley Hackett whose term ends in 2023, and Fishman who whose term runs until March 2024.
Culver was one of four people the board interviewed Wednesday. The others were business management consultant Glenn Andersen, lawyer Victoria Taravella, and Bill Poderzay, a special education teacher in Essex.
Although state law calls for the school board to appoint a replacement when a vacancy comes up in between elections, the process allows for input from the select board in the community the position represents. The Waterbury Select Board interviewed Culver, Andersen and Taravella on Monday; Poderzay didn’t reply to schedule an interview, according to Town Clerk Carla Lawrence.
A fifth applicant initially included in the group withdrew before the select board meeting. Jacqueline Kelleher, who works at the state Agency of Education, told Waterbury Roundabout she reconsidered after seeing the others step forward including Culver who ran for a board seat. She also said she may have needed to check with superiors whether her work as director of special education for the state might have precluded her from being on a school board.
During Wednesday’s interviews with the applicants for the Waterbury board opening, each had two minutes to explain their interest in the position.
“I have some big opinions, but I’m trying to tread back on those,” said Andersen, a 30-year local resident who has been critical of the school district. Noting that he has two children in high school and one recent graduate, he said he’s following discussions of a construction bond and he sees ways the school system could be improved. “College is not for everybody,” he said, adding that schools need to be preparing students “to become adults in our community” who remain here after they graduate.
The only Harwood alumnus in the group, Culver has worked in occupational health and safety for much of his career. He said he would like to be “a liaison to the Waterbury community” as a board member regarding the multitude of projects the district has on deck. “We need to make sure that we understand the direction we are moving in is the direction that [the community] wants to be in as well as what is good for our students, our faculty, and our staff,” he said.
Taravella, who grew up in Florida and moved to Waterbury three years ago, described herself as “the exact opposite” of Culver and Andersen. She currently works as a lawyer in Burlington and has experience in county government and as a substitute teacher. “I want to get involved and make a difference,” she said, pointing out that being new to a community could be a plus. “I can bring some other experiences from where I've been and ideas that maybe some people didn’t think about right away.”
A special educator at Essex High School, Bill Poderzay said he moved to Vermont from Colorado five years ago and taught at Harwood Union High School for three years. “The first two years were the best years of my career,” he said. “Things took a turn for the worse last year and I don’t particularly think it's due to COVID. … I’ve never seen morale so low and I want to do something about it.”
The board’s 8-3 vote in the weighted breakdown came to 51.85% for Culver and 26.4% for Taravella. Waterbury members Caitlin Hollister and Fishman along with Waitsfield representative Christine Sullivan voted for Taravella. The remainder of the board supported Culver with the exceptions of Jeremy Tretiak of Waitsfield who was absent and Chair Torrey Smith of Duxbury who customarily does not vote except in the case of a tie.
The school board’s meeting where it appointed Culver was its second in as many weeks to fill a board vacancy. The board on July 14 made an appointment to a seat representing Duxbury that also runs until the March 2022 election. The board chose Cindy Senning, a former Duxbury Elementary School principal, school nurse, teacher and school board member for that position. That term will have one year remaining for voters to decide in the March election.
The school board is presently on a summer recess with its regular meetings expected to resume in late August as school opens for the new academic year. The board will have significant work ahead in its initial meetings as it seeks to finalize by mid-September a proposal for a bond issue to put to voters in November.
The district is looking to bond to pay for extensive renovations to Harwood Union High School and to add onto Crossett Brook Middle School in order to combine the Harwood Middle School grade seven and eight students at Crossett Brook. The scope and cost for that proposal still need to be determined. Estimates so far have been in the $40-50 million range.
Heading into the fall, the school board also will be overseeing a search for a new superintendent to lead the district starting next summer. Superintendent Brigid Nease’s contract ends in June 2022 and she plans to step down after what will then be 13 years in that role.
In addition, the board continues to look at the overall configuration of the district’s schools. It recently resurrected the topic of the future of Fayston Elementary School, the district’s smallest school that has been considered for closure since the district merged in 2017.
Video recordings of HUUSD board meetings can be found on the district’s YouTube channel. The July 21 meeting has two videos given a break for an executive session for deliberations. After some technical difficulties, interviews begin in the first clip at the 13:00 mark.