LETTER: Work continues on exploring school facility options
March 18, 2025To the Community:
A rumor is circulating in our towns that the school district is creating a plan to close the Fayston and Moretown schools. As members of the board who have been involved in the Building Visioning Subcommittee, we would like to set the record straight and provide additional context.
The school board contracted with TruexCullins last fall to price out cost savings for different school consolidation scenarios. They have taken the deep dive that we asked them to take. The board’s job is to balance the importance of our students’ educational quality, our community schools, our finances, the property tax burden we all face and now the complexities of the Governor’s proposal to make significant changes to Vermont’s education system. TruexCullins’ cost modeling is just one piece of this bigger puzzle.
This complex balancing act will ideally take years, not months, to resolve. But our towns do not have the luxury of mulling things over like a think tank. The governor and Vermont Agency of Education secretary Zoie Saunders have proposed a sweeping school funding and district consolidation plan, that ELIMINATES LOCAL CONTROL and will FOCUS ON CONSOLIDATION to save money, on the state’s terms and time frame, not ours.
We understand that our townspeople in Fayston and Moretown are frustrated that their schools are in the spotlight again because so far the majority of consolidation ideas include these two schools. They rightfully worry about property values, about losing their town hubs, their town hearts, and can you blame them?
At the same time, the school board has heard from other community members and former school board members during the 2024 budget season who strongly encouraged that the school board explore school consolidation. There are parents across our district who want to see investment in our schools for the kids of today and tomorrow, and they know it is going to cost. This work is complicated. The Board is trying to stay ahead of the process so that these decisions are made by OUR COMMUNITY, not a state agency or a five member school board representing 47 towns.
The school board is taking this process step by step, looking deeply at the options. And at every step, we want to hear from our community members. We have heard the rumors that school closings will happen in the 26/27 school year. That is not realistic because all of the options being explored will require some level of capital investment in schools beyond the district’s current budget.
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. There is one option to just pass a bond for the $20 million-plus 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 bottom line is that we are openly debating these difficult questions about consolidation now so that we don’t have to consolidate on the state’s terms in the future. Under the governor’s proposal, schools could be closed based only on class size. This is a baseball-bat approach to a very complex problem that must be addressed within the HUUSD district with a lot of community input.
School Board members, like you, are members of our tight-knit communities that both love their schools and struggle with property taxes. We are doing everything we can to honor the wishes of our communities by turning over all the rocks, in the open. We will not rush this process.
All of our discussions are occuring at open committee and board meetings. The recordings can be viewed on the school district YouTube channel. We encourage your participation in our meetings. We also encourage you to engage in the debate with our governor and state legislature regarding the education proposals moving forward in Montpelier.
Sincerely,
Ashley Woods (Warren) - School Board chair
Cindy Senning (Duxbury) - School Board vice-chair
Steve Rosenberg (Moretown) - Public Outreach Committee chair
JB Weir (Waitsfield) - Building Visioning Committee chair
Editor’s Note: State representatives from the Harwood Unified Union School Districts communities will hold a public community meeting to discuss the state education proposal at Harwood Union High School on Monday, March 24, 6-8 p.m.