To The Editor:
We have a long history in the Washington West Supervisory Union of striving to do what is best for our children and our taxpayers. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly difficult with our current educational funding and governance model in the state of Vermont. Under Act 46, school districts in Vermont are being encouraged to consolidate to form economies of scale in order to share resources, control costs and enhance educational offerings. The towns in the Washington West Supervisory Union will vote June 7 on whether or not to join together as one unified school district, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, with a single board.
The Harwood Union School Board enthusiastically endorses the merger. For the last seven months, the Harwood School Board has been exploring the opportunities offered by Act 46. If merged in school year 2017-18, we will realize a 10 cent reduction in our tax rate per $100 of property value, followed by 8, 6, 4 and 2 cents in the next four years. This tax relief will allow the new unified board to achieve efficiencies in a well-thought-out manner. Cost efficiencies would allow for some savings to be reinvested into the high school for needed renovations in order to provide space for modern academic offerings. All of the students in the district will attend Harwood and the merger gives us our best opportunity to build the state’s most competitive 21st-century high school.
The Harwood School Board is unique: Ours is the only school board with representation from all six towns in our supervisory union. The Harwood School Board believes that this model has served our students and taxpayers well, especially in regard to our firm belief that the students at Harwood Union High School are part of a collective community, not just individual students from our respective towns sharing a physical space.
We encourage you to vote yes on the school district merger on June 7 and help Washington West keep up its tradition of doing what is best for our students and our taxpayers.
Harwood Union School Board: Deb Hunter, chair, Moretown; David Goodman, vice chair, Waterbury; Laura Caffry, Waitsfield; Susan Daley, Fayston; Garett MacCurtain, Duxbury; Maureen McCracken, Waterbury; and Rosemarie White, Warren.
