Eight of 14 Harwood school board seats on the March ballot
February 5, 2023 | By Lisa Scagliotti UPDATE: This post was updated on Feb. 6 to add a write-in candidate for one of the Fayston seats.
Elections to fill seats on the Harwood Unified Union School Board this Town Meeting Day will be the busiest yet since the district merged and formed just one school board in 2017.
Eight of the board’s 14 seats will be on local ballots across five of the district’s six communities in the March 7 election. Warren is the only town where neither of its school board seats’ terms end in 2023. All school board terms are three years. Some elections are to fill spots for a shorter time due to people being appointed to fill vacancies.
Waterbury has two seats on the ballot. Kelley Hackett, currently the board’s vice chair, is ending her first three-year term. Jake Pitman was appointed in October to serve until March; his seat has one year remaining. Hackett has filed to run for the one-year opening; Pitman is on the ballot running for the full three-year term.
Duxbury has its two seats on the ballot and both incumbents are seeking to remain on the board. Cindy Senning, who was appointed in 2021 and won election to the remaining year on her seat in 2022, is running for a full three-year term. Appointed in 2022 to serve until March, Life LeGeros is running for the two years remaining on his seat.
In both Moretown and Waitsfield, incumbent board members Lisa Mason and Christine Sullivan respectively are ending their terms and neither is seeking re-election. Sullivan is the board’s longest-serving member and was the consolidated board’s first chair after merger. She also is a member of the Waitsfield Selectboard and is running for re-election to that position this year.
In Moretown, Ben Clark is the one candidate who filed to be on the March ballot.
In Waitsfield, J.B. Weir is the name voters will see on the ballot.
Fayston voters will have to write-in their choices for school board. Both of their current representatives, Kim Laidlaw and Mike Bishop, chose not to run for election in March and no one filed a petition last week to get on the ballot, according to Town Clerk Patti Lewis.
Both Laidlaw and Bishop were appointed in 2022 to serve until March. Laidlaw was named to a spot previously held by Tim Jones who did not run for re-election last year; Bishop was appointed in 2022 to fill a vacancy when Theresa Membrino resigned. Laidlaw’s seat has two years remaining; Bishop’s seat has one year left.
So far, one candidate has announced interest in the one-year seat for Fayston: Danielle Dukette.
Lewis said the ballot will list the two openings with voters needing to write in candidates for those spots.
Waterbury Roundabout invites all candidates to send letters introducing themselves to voters that will be published on a special Town Meeting Day page that will be added to the website soon.
Correction: This post was updated to correct the Moretown school board seat on the ballot. Kristen Rodgers’ term ends in 2024.