CAVENDISH, Vt. – At the Cavendish Selectboard meeting on July 8, Wendi McNaughton, Proctorsville resident, mother, and teacher, addressed the board along with a “handful of concerned Cavendish citizens who have been following the restructuring meetings,” referring to the discussion on the potential reconfiguration of local school districts being considered by Two Rivers Supervisory Union (TRSU).
McNaughton had come to the selectboard meeting to address the proposed restructuring of the three schools within the Green Mountain Union School District (GMUSD): Green Mountain Union High School (GMUHS), Chester-Andover Elementary School (CAES), and Cavendish Town Elementary School (CTES).
McNaughton appealed to the board to at least start a dialogue within the Cavendish community specifically. “This has been a supervisory conversation,” McNaughton remarked. “I feel it has not really been open enough to the citizens and the students, and the people more directly involved with it in town.”
“There was a survey sent out,” McNaughton continued, “that lots of people in town were able to respond to. No one within Cavendish picked within their top three of all the choices, this idea of moving the sixth grade up to the high school. But that is currently the option that the majority of the restructuring committee is about to vote for.”
Another option would be to add a pre-kindergarten level to CTES, but, overall, McNaughton and others feel these changes will leave Cavendish vulnerable, and potentially without a school.
“We see across the state the financial implications that closing a small school has on communities,” McNaughton stressed.
McNaughton voiced her concern that the committee would be making their final decision over the summer, to meet contract deadlines for next year, a time when many residents and teachers are away. Also, the community has, thus far, seen no financial data from the school board, so are not aware of what the financial benefits might be, or how much the cost of bussing kids to Chester would impact the taxpayers of Cavendish.
The idea of moving some of Chester’s students to CTES was not an option on the survey, and McNaughton felt that would have been a popular choice for many of Chester’s families.
Commenting that no detailed descriptions of the schools were included in the survey to assist parents trying to make informed decisions, McNaughton exclaimed, “They didn’t hear that our grades are higher. They didn’t hear that our classroom sizes are smaller.”
“We do have the sense that it would be academically, socially, and emotionally a poor choice for our students,” expressed McNaughton.
If Cavendish were to withdraw from GMUSD, that could open possibilities such as combining resources with other schools or changing the structure of CTES.
Margo Caulfield commented, “This year we will have 70 or less students at CTES, and the state is already saying elementary schools must have at least 100 students.”
GMUSD board member Steve Perani remarked, “The process that has resulted in the preferred choice of the majority of the board, to move the sixth graders to the high school, has been rushed, and led by Chester representatives.”
Calling the survey “terribly flawed,” Perani echoed some of the points McNaughton had made earlier. “There was no description at all about why Chester families might want to entertain sending their kids to Cavendish. You have one school that’s over capacity, and one that’s under capacity,” said Perani. “It’s not rocket science.”
Perani spoke of the need for more civic engagement, and said CTES is an asset for the town, cultivated over many years, and the town has a say in how that asset is used. Perani warned, “If these sixth graders go to the high school, and our enrollment falls below 50, Emilie Kornheiser [Vermont state representative, and head of the Vermont Ways and Means Committee] has literally said, ‘I’m coming after schools with less than 100 kids.’”
Perani reported that Kornheiser had been tasked with looking at the viability of underenrolled schools in the state, and buildings that have reached their end of life. “GM is vastly underenrolled, and has reached the end of its life, and there is concern [about GMUHS’ sustainability].”
Vermont Rep. John Arrison was in attendance, and told the meeting, “This situation isn’t unique to Cavendish, and it isn’t unique to Two Rivers, it’s happening all over the state. Everyone understands and appreciates that as soon as you close the school, it rips the heart out of a lot of communities.”
At the July 11 GMUSD Restructuring Committee meeting, the debate continued among attendees, along with discussion on the choices in front of them, none particularly favorable. There is the potential elimination of one of the district’s schools, a consolidation of others, an effort to conserve resources, but ultimately, no concrete plans were decided upon at this time.
Weathersfield resident and retired teacher Kathryn Martins, who was attending the meeting online, noted that “our communities are not really that [geographically] close together. I know families who work, and need to get a child to school, another child to middle school, and then need to make it to work on time.”
Martins continued, “I just hope that you put at the center of the table, the child and the family, and the scenarios that will not work. Not that the families don’t want the programs, but they cannot make it work within their schedule. The more you divide those children between buildings, the more you impact those parents’ schedules.”
GMUSD will hold its next restructuring committee meeting on Thursday, July 25, at 6 p.m.