State backs school merger idea
Toolbox
By Cristina Kumka STAFF WRITER - Published: July 8, 2009
School merger talks have been ignited by a study committee in Salisbury and Leicester and according to one Vermont representative with knowledge of the idea, the state will support towns that want to merge their low-attendance, high-cost schools with others, but legislators will not mandate it anytime soon.
"We've seen in the past that people are concerned that their community center will no longer be a community center," said Rep. Gregory Clark, a Republican from Vergennes who attended a June 24 meeting focused on the school merger discussion at the Salisbury Community School.
"The Legislature hasn't come up with a plan or policy that mandates mergers and that would not be our first choice," he said.
Clark agreed that mandating school mergers statewide would be "political suicide," sparking rifts between politicians who largely stand by local control of schools, but he said he supported schools merging on their own to save costs and save those schools on the brink of closing because of declining student populations.
Clark accompanied Sen. Claire Ayer of Weybridge and Rep. Willem Jewett of Ripton to one of two meetings a committee of school board members from Leicester and Salisbury have held since its formation in May.
The committee — an extension of one previously formed among school officials from Leicester, Sudbury and Whiting that put a proposal for an LSW Community School up to voters — is in the first stages of its study, according to committee chairwoman Connie Carroll.
The committee has accessed the architectural plans and research from the LSW committee and sent questions to Brad James, the education finance manager at the Vermont Department of Education, asking how a merger would work among two schools in two different school districts.
The LSW committee became inactive after Sudbury voters opted out of the project in January, as did Whiting later in the year.
"Is there a model that we can look at and work with or are we working with uncharted territory at this point?" Carroll said Tuesday.
The driver for a merger study between the 65-student Leicester Central School and the estimated 100-student Salisbury Community School comes from declining student numbers, rising costs to taxpayers and the need for increased student services but also from a public push made by the state, Carroll said.
Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca has been petitioning the state since he took office seven months ago to offer financial incentives to schools and school districts that show an interest in consolidating.
In June, Vilaseca told the Vermont Workforce Council that the state has too many teachers, principals and superintendents for the number of students the state has.
Clark said it was a "great thing" to see school officials in Leicester and Salisbury taking the lead.
"School directors are interested in this idea because they see the numbers dwindle and costs increase and are trying to come up with a plan that's healthy for the towns," Clark said in an interview last week.
Clark said it would have to be a "dire" financial situation for the state's elected officials to force schools or districts to merge, but in time, if local school leaders don't do it on their own, it may come to that.
"Then it would be up to the Legislature to determine where the lines would be drawn," he said.
Representatives from the state Department of Education are expected to meet with the new study committee at 6:30 p.m. July 22 at the Salisbury Community School at 286 Kelley Cross Road to further discuss the merger plan.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
38