CAVENDISH, Vt.— After a three-month-long search process culminating in a public Meet the Candidates event on Monday, Jan. 29, the Two Rivers Supervisory Union Board has decided to offer the position of superintendent to Layne Millington, according to minutes TRSU shared with the Journal from their Feb. 1 regular meeting. Currently the superintendent of Orange Southwest School District (which covers the towns of Randolph, Braintree, and Brookfield), Millington will replace Lauren Fierman, who resigned during the Green Mountain Union High School mascot controversy.
“I am both excited and humbled by the opportunity to be a part of the Two Rivers Supervisory Union,” Millington wrote in an email. “I am keenly aware of the faith folks are placing in me and will work tirelessly on behalf of the students, the teachers, the staff, the boards, and the entire TRSU community. The hard work and flexibility of the search team, the participation of the community, and the warmth and openness of the process was genuinely appreciated.”
The other candidate, Dr. Debra Fishwick, is the principal of Ludlow Elementary School and was previously a co-principal at Manchester Elementary School. During the Meet the Candidates event, she described herself as a problem-solver and collaborator, highlighting working closely with teachers and staff and establishing positive relationships early on as key to meeting the district’s goals and avoiding controversy. Dr. Fishwick said that she believed TRSU could benefit from some systems-level changes around curriculum and teacher evaluations, both to improve quality of education for students and to add professional development support for teachers.
During the Meet the Candidates event, Millington emphasized that his leadership tactics revolve around collaboration, and that his role as superintendent will be to facilitate the district’s vision and goals. “If you already have a vision, I’ll help you achieve it. If you don’t have a vision, I’ll help you develop one.” When certain changes inherently involve core values and beliefs, he said, he’ll want to make sure that all voices are heard, but that compromises are made early in the process to “shift everyone towards a common goal,” avoiding heated debates and controversies that could take attention off of education.
Millington is no stranger to heading a district during controversies. Randolph Union High School has been the subject of several debates over the last few years, including those over the changed imagery of a mascot formerly said to resemble a Klansman, and after players on the girl’s volleyball team spoke to local media about their discomfort sharing a locker room with a transgender teammate (state law allows school athletes to use locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity). Under Millington, the district investigated claims that the transgender student had behaved inappropriately in the locker room, and ultimately came to the conclusion that the student had not caused any harm. They also took disciplinary action, later reversed in a lawsuit settlement, against a father-and-daughter soccer coach and volleyball player who did not use the transgender student’s preferred pronouns and expressed beliefs that biological sex always determines gender. Millington said at the Meet the Candidates event that after the story attracted national media attention, he received six months of serious and frighteningly specific death threats. The death threats have been investigated by the FBI.
Asked how he would respond to online criticisms of his “arrogance” and “duplicity,” he responded, “Very easily.” He said such comments were likely “holdovers” from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which supported the soccer coach and volleyball player in their lawsuit, and from what he described as a small contingent that “brought down holy terror” on the Randolph community. “A gentlemen running for state Senate believed that he could stir the pot and get in the news,” said Millington, likely alluding to John Klar, who was an unsuccessful candidate in Orange County’s 2022 state Senate race, and wrote several online articles criticizing Millington’s management of the locker room and other issues.
Millington said he is seeking to leave Orange Southwest School District over differences in personal values; namely, integrity.