HARDWICK – Our family is looking forward to a better 2026. I appreciate all the support that I have gotten during a very trying summer. These are great communities, and I am proud to serve all of you.
January will bring with it final board meetings to finalize the budgets at Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union (OSSU) and for each school. I would be lying if I said this was an easy task this year, it is not.
With very conservative expenditure budgets, tax rates are still predicted to go up. Many variables create the increase: state yield, Common Level of Appraisal, and the Long-Term Weighted Average Daily Membership, to name a few. The school boards do not control these variables.
As I write this, we are in the middle of making significant cuts to each and every budget.
The school boards are always cognizant of the needs of each and every student. They try to avoid cutting positions that are directly related to instruction and academic intervention. This year, they may not be able to avoid some of that cutting. It is too early to tell, but once budgets are in place, we will make every effort to share the information.
Some community members have asked why the communities can’t be more involved in the actual reductions. If that were to happen, boards would have to start the process much earlier and would not have any state information listed above that would indicate what reductions might be necessary. It is a real conundrum.
This legislative season will be critical. The legislators are going to deal with school district organization and school district funding. We will stay right on top of those deliberations, as these decisions will be critical to our small rural schools.
The legislature will be addressing the redistricting report filed by the commission established last legislative session. The report recommended an incremental approach after finding no evidence that larger districts save money or improve education.
Three key recommendations are to create five regional BOCES (Boards of Centralized Educational Services) for shared services like special education and transportation; to support voluntary, data-driven district mergers rather than arbitrary size requirements; and to establish regional high schools offering advanced coursework, languages, technical education, mental health services and extracurriculars.
In essence, the commission did not feel they had enough time to formally recommend any of these options and, instead, offered a longer timeline to gather more data related to cost savings associated with each.
Some legislators and the governor were disappointed in the commission’s report. They felt the commission had been delegated with one task; to draw maps that would embrace the idea of district and/or supervisory union (SU) mergers. It should be an interesting legislative session. You can read the full report at bit.ly/VT_Redistrictinhg
It is important to note that Act 73 did include a section on minimum class sizes. The first year of implementation will be next year. The recommended class sizes will be difficult for many of our small schools. Next year is intended to be a state data-gathering year. Each school will have to report their class sizes by grade level and teacher.
There is an allowance to combine two grades, but no more than two. Then the state is supposed to identify who is in compliance and who is not. A school will have the following year to come into compliance. Many of the decisions regarding the budget, both this year and next, will have to consider this minimum class size legal requirement. Again, it’s not an easy task. We will stay on top of this.
The search process for a new superintendent is underway. It is being facilitated by the Vermont School Board Association in consultation with the SU board. The community survey has closed, as well as the application window for serving on the search screening committee. We had a healthy number of applicants; the OSSU board will affirm the search screening committee and review the community feedback at their January meeting. We will keep everyone updated on the next steps. The current timeline aims to fill the position by the end of February, if possible.
As the position is now posted, the board invites board members, staff and members of the public to assist in sharing the opportunity broadly to help attract a strong and diverse pool of qualified candidates. More information can be found at ossu.org/en–US/superintendent–search.
Some January school meeting schedules are: Craftsbury Board Meeting, January 14, 6-8 p.m., Craftsbury Common Room; Hazen Board Meeting, January 20, 6-8 p.m., Hazen Union Library; and Wolcott Board Meeting, January 21, 6-8 p.m., Wolcott Elementary School
Community participation is welcome and encouraged at all school budget informational meetings and annual school district meetings scheduled:
Wolcott Town School District, February 18, 6 p.m.: Budget Informational meeting on the FY27 Budget, March 3, 15 minutes after town meeting, annual school district meeting.
Mountain View Union Elementary School District, February 24, 6 p.m.: annual school district meeting, February 24, 6:30 p.m., public informational hearing on the FY27 Budget.
Hazen Union School District, February 25, 7 p.m.: public informational hearing on the FY27 Budget, February 25, 7:30 p.m.: annual school district meeting.
Craftsbury Town School District: March 3, 9 a.m., annual school district meeting, followed by the annual town meeting.
Stannard Town School District: March 3, 9 a.m., annual school district meeting.
Dr. David Baker
Dr. David Baker is the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union Superintendent
