HARDWICK − We won’t always agree with every decision our school boards make, but we should all agree on this: they must exist. Without them, we lose local democracy, community involvement, and taxpayer oversight. Whether you’re from Hardwick, Greensboro, Woodbury, Stannard, Wolcott or Craftsbury, one thing is clear: our communities value local control, community-based education and local school board representation. We care deeply about where and how our kids learn and we want a say in it.
The Rural Schools Community Alliance (RSCA), a coalition of community and municipal groups, school boards and educators, has fought hard to preserve these values in the current legislation. Thanks to their efforts, the new law, Act 73, recognizes Supervisory Unions (SUs) in addition to Supervisory Districts (Sds), giving rural voices a chance to be heard.
But RSCA can’t do this alone. Now it’s our turn.
If OSSU is eliminated and replaced by a large supervisory district as favored by the governor and Vermont Agency of Education, our local school boards would vanish. Decision-making power would shift to a distant, centralized board potentially overseeing 4,000-plus students. Town-level representation would disappear. Budget decisions and school closures would happen without our consent. [Editor’s note: The proposal includes creating local school advisory committees to provide community input on budgeting and school improvement plans. While the advisory committees would not have a vote, they are intended to ensure local voices are heard and considered within the larger, regional district structure.]
Under a supervisory union structure, by contrast, existing school boards and their articles of agreement would be retained. Budgets stay local. Voices stay local. Though it could entail mergers or boundary shifts (e.g., merging with Lamoille South, Caledonia Central, or others), we keep a seat at the table. We keep our say.
Some, such as the Vermont School Board Association argue supervisory unions (SU) open the door to privatization. That’s a distraction. The real threat is centralized power in sprawling districts, where towns lose control. SUs allow for shared efficiencies, collaboration and cost effective shared services, without silencing community voices. That’s the balance we need.
Act 73 established a redistricting committee who has been appointed and is already beginning their work, with three proposals due in December and a vote by the legislature in January. We must act now to influence the outcome. We are not powerless and there are knowledgeable members on this committee who understand rural concerns. Talk to your school board. Call your legislators. Let them know: We want to stay in a Supervisory Union. We value local decision-making.
Much of Vermont is rural. Our education system should reflect that and be accessible for rural families. Without community-based schooling, transportation challenges and long bus rides may force young families like mine to leave Vermont’s small towns at a faster rate than they already are, further accelerating small-town economic decline. Consolidation of school governance means disappearing civic engagement and our diminished ability to influence important decisions about education in the future: that’s what we risk if we let our school boards go.
This is a fight for more than education. It’s a fight for our communities. It’s a fight for democracy.
Laura Cannon is a Hardwick resident and parent of two preschoolers. She is a speech-language pathologist and a member of the Rural School Community Alliance. For more information visit vtruralschools.org
