BENNINGTON – An audit of the Southwest Vermont Regional Career Development Center, posted on the school’s website on Friday, strongly criticized its governance and recommended cutting a number of administrative positions and returning control of the school to the Mount Anthony Union School Board.

The report, from RES and Associates of Florida, was created in response to a letter sent by Vermont Department of Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca in March to the then-chairman of the center’s school board. Vilaseca directed the school, in the wake of the resignation of its superintendent and director, to “consider all options”including maintaining the existing governance, dissolving the center’s school district and meeting with officials from the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union to consider whether it could take over some of the center’s administrative needs.

Robert Schiller and two other consultants conducted interviews in December with the center’s school board members, administrators and staff in order to prepare the audit report. According to RES, 98 percent of the students at the center, which shares a building with Mount Anthony Union High School, are students at the high school who also take classes at the center.
However, the report said the schools do not work well together.

“One interviewee stated, “Cooperation between the (center) and (the high school) is seen as capitulation.’ The current governance structure and culture surrounding the (center) and staff has not been necessarily to the advantage (of) the students’ interests but appears to be more centered on the adults’ interests with the main issue of who is in control,” the report said.

The report added that James Culkeen, the current superintendent and director of the center, had made “positive strides” in that area.

The center was part of the Mount Anthony Union school district until a vote in 2003 created a separate district and an 11-member school board for the career development center, or CDC. The CDC serves 13 towns including towns in the northern part of Bennington County like Manchester and Dorset.

According to the report, people involved with the CDC were “adamantly” in favor of maintaining the current governance.
“Those who have experience with the CDC prior to the ‘split’ believe adamantly that the CDC did not receive the attention that it deserved under the governance of (Mount Anthony,)” the report said.

But the audit, which complimented a number of things at the center like its automotive, culinary and forestry programs, found that the CDC is “not operating at peak performance” in its programs or financially and that the effort to attract students outside the Bennington area “has not been aggressive, creative or successful.”

The report recommends cutting a number of positions including the business manager, the special education coordinator and, possibly, the assistant director. The auditors urged the CDC’s leaders to create a transition plan by July 1.
While there is a recommendation that the CDC return to Mount Anthony, the auditors said they were concerned because of issues raised during their interviews.

“This oral history may portend that renewal of the prior governance option will be characterized by the priority of power issues and the continued acrimony among adults while matters in the best interest of students will be a secondary concern,” the report said.

A public meeting is scheduled for today at 6 p.m. at the CDC to discuss the report.

patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com