Closing the door
Toolbox
Published: June 23, 2009
The closing of the Hancock Village School shows what is at stake in the debate about school consolidation.
On the face of it, the Hancock school was a prime candidate for closing. The estimated population of the town, as of 2007, was 363, and only about 20 students attended the school. Rising costs at the school finally convinced Hancock voters they had no recourse but to close it. The vote for closing was 65 to 37.
But Hancock residents felt the loss of what they described as the heart of their community. In fact, the school was one of the only institutions still left in town. The one major employer, Vermont Plywood, had closed down. Most of the people who live in Hancock are retired.
The closing of the Hancock school was especially poignant because it had been there since 1801 — that was during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Generations of Hancock residents had attended. Something was ending that would never return.
And yet the process of consolidation has been under way for generations in Vermont. The municipal map of most rural Vermont towns from a century ago would show many towns divided up into rural school districts. Before school buses, each village within a Vermont town would have its own schoolhouse. Many of those rural village schools still exist — converted into homes. It was consolidation that gave most Vermont towns only one school.
Now the tiniest towns are choosing on their own to close their schools. But not always. The towns of Leicester, Sudbury and Whiting recently considered the possibility of consolidating their three schools into one. But Sudbury, population 606, refused.
Hancock is one of those towns in the narrow valley where the watersheds of the Mad River and White River are separated by the region of Granville Gulf. Here Addison, Windsor and Washington counties run along the narrow valley bisected by Route 100. Most of Hancock's students (Addison County) are likely to head a few miles south to Rochester's school (Windsor County), though a few may head a few miles north to Warren (Washington County).
For Vermont's education officials that is as it should be, and they would like to encourage other towns to follow suit. It is easy for them to say. They are the ones watching the overall education budget numbers and consulting the organizational charts.
The new education commissioner, Armando Vilaseca, is following the tune hummed by his predecessor, Richard Cate, that consolidation would bring greater efficiencies to Vermont education. This song is generally popular among state officials and politicians from Chittenden County (Madeleine Kunin and Howard Dean both spoke favorably of consolidation) where the small town ethos is less prevalent.
But despite the continuing temptation, state officials are still unable to enforce a top-down reshaping of Vermont's education map. And that's a good thing. Gov. James Douglas was the latest to attempt inroads on local authority, but this year the Legislature refused to go along with his effort to impose budget caps on local schools and force state expenditures onto the shoulders of local property tax payers.
A top-down reshaping is tempting to officials at high levels because they think they know better. But what Hancock's residents said was true: Schools are the heart of Vermont's hundreds of small towns.
If the heart is to be ripped out, it ought to follow a decision by local residents. Hancock voters made that decision, and before long Hancock students and their parents may identify with and feel loyalty toward the school in Rochester, showing that consolidation can work.
But the difficulty in closing down local schools is not just about nostalgia. It is about the health of Vermont's civic life. It is not about parochialism. It is about democracy in Vermont, which is unique in the nation. Hancock did a tough thing in closing its school, but what's important is that it was Hancock's doing. Other small towns may find the need to close small schools, and their students may gain as a result. But it must be their decision to make.
29