To the editor:
The schoolchildren of Greensboro, Hardwick, Stannard and Woodbury need your vote to pass their budget. Twice now, a small number of budget opponents, roughly or less than 10% of our towns’ combined electorate, defeated the proposed budget of Mountain View Union Elementary School District.
On March 3, opponents outnumbered supporters 389 to 377; and on April 7, 315 to 282.
The defeated budgets resulted in the issuance of Reduction in Force notices, which informed teachers and staff that currently their contracts cannot be renewed. Now merely months before the start of the 2026-2027 School Year, this uncertainty makes our schools and towns unstable and unattractive to current and prospective employees and families with school-age children.
Why such opposition to school budgets? Public comments made to the school board during the budgeting process indicate some voters rejected budgets in an attempt to close Woodbury School (and Lakeview later). But closure of schools requires a separate public process; it can’t be done through budgeting.
Closure advocates knew this, or should have known, as the district’s articles of agreement, which govern closures, is clearly posted on the school board’s website and available as a public document. Instead of seeking closure through procedure, these voters rejected two budgets, thereby potentially harming our district’s students, teachers, communities, and, ironically, the school they’re trying to promote, Hardwick Elementary.
Sadly, on the big stage, budget opponents and school closers and we their adversaries are playing parts scripted by the authors of national tax policy and wealth gaps. As billionaires harvest tax windfalls, we the gleaners compete for the fruits of our labor. In other words, while the billionaire buys a second yacht, the village closes its only school.
But it need not be this way. Rather than bow to the pressure of the moment, we can stand for a promising future; support budgets, maintain schools, inspire our kids to stay and raise families. And may our children succeed where we’ve failed, to balance our nation’s wealth; keep more harvest in our towns; and spare their own children the ongoing threat of failed budgets and school closures.
And let the billionaire sail a single yacht into the sunset.
The future is in our children’s hands; their fate is on our ballots. Say no to defeat and closure, and vote “yes” for our children and schools. The budget revote is May 20.
Stephen Murphy, Woodbury
