WESTMINSTER, Vt. – After being mandated by the Vermont Board of Education in 2018 to merge with the towns of Grafton and Athens and form an elementary “union school district” under Act 46, the state board has now voted to approve Westminster’s plan to reestablish its own school district.
Back in January, Westminster almost unanimously voted to break away from the Windham Northeast Elementary Union School District, with the blessing of both Grafton and Athens, after all three towns had strongly disagreed with the original decision of Act 46.
However, Westminster took advantage of another Vermont law, which allows town residents to vote and withdraw from a merged school district after a one-year period, if they did not originally vote to form the union school district and had been forced to comply.
This allowed the Westminster Education Advisory Committee, led by Westminster School Board Chairman and town moderator of the virtual meetings, David Major, to create a petition and organize a special vote on possible secession. The plan would allow for the town to reestablish its own school district. “This also means demonstrating to our children how democracy runs and how participating can make a difference,” Major had said during a virtual town meeting back in January.
In the recent virtual meeting with the VBE to decide the outcome, Major explained the advisory committee’s outline and expressed the town’s desire to bring back its former school system of past generations, a community-focused school district consisting of kindergarten through eighth grade.
The VBE accepted the outline and approved the request for Westminster to become an independent school district. The decision not only allows Westminster to once again run their school independently, but also allows Grafton and Athens, who fully cooperated with the decision, to also maintain its own school building and directors.
The decision allows Westminster to create a community-orientated governance that they believe will regenerate more interest in the decision-making process of their school. Additionally, Westminster will remain a part of the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union and, when Westminster students reach high school, they will still attend Bellows Falls Union High School.
The next step in this process will be for Westminster to elect new school board members at next month’s town meeting, as the new district will be in effect as of July. According to Major, there are plenty of worthy candidates and the process would not be a problem. However, an approval from the state may be required to allow the school board election to take place next month.
Yet another step in the process will include VBE’s next decision on finalizing the formal status of Athens and Grafton, now that the decision has been made to allow Westminster to reestablish its own school district.