‘Nobody is looking to close Cavendish’ – A tale of two meetings

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2024 Telegraph Publishing

Last week, two meetings looked at the same topic, but the tone of each could not have been more different. At issue is a proposal to move the 6th grades out of the elementary schools and create a grades 6 to 8 middle school. Currently, the middle school is made up of 7th and 8th graders and is located at Green Mountain High in Chester.

The action would open up space in the overcrowded Chester-Andover Elementary and make room for a  district-wide preschool program at Cavendish Town Elementary. A recent survey of parents from the district, sent out by Two Rivers Supervisory Union, saw this as an attractive option.

On Monday, July 8, several Cavendish residents told their select board that the option to move the CTES 6th was at the heart of their desire to pull CTES out TRSU. Cavendish parent Wendi McNaughton spoke for the group, which included two elected board members from the GM Unified School District.

McNaughton said withdrawing from TRSU would “start a conversation” in the GM district. She said the group needed guidance, support and legal help with a study that is mandated by state statute  to begin the separation process.  McNaughton asked the Cavendish Select Board to fund the town’s attorney in helping the Parent Teacher Group with the process. Board chair Bob Glidden noted at the outset that the board has no authority over the school while board member George Timko thought that a grassroots effort would be more effective in getting support than a town government effort.

“No one on this board wants to see the school close,” said Timko.

GM board member Steve Perani told the select board he would be blunt. “If these 6th graders go to the high school and the enrollment falls below 50, (Vermont House Ways and Means chair) Emilie Kornheiser has literally said ‘I’m coming after schools with less than a hundred kids.'”

The Telegraph contacted Kornheiser who said she has never said that she wanted schools closed.

“I didn’t ever say anything even like that,” said Kornheiser.

Calls to Perani for clarification were not returned by publication time.

Resident Sara Stowell said that this was a larger issue than just the school and likened it to community development. As such, Stowell said the town’s participation would make the difference and asked the board to sponsor the effort and “let these people do the work.”

While the idea of leaving the district has been floated before, the rhetoric has heated up with Perani praising the elementary school and saying “…we built it, they usurped it and now it’s in a position where it’s very vulnerable.” Former GM board member Abe Gross said it was “time for GM (High School) to go. They put it in the wrong part of town. They wanted to reach Rockingham, they didn’t want to reach Cavendish. They could have put it in Gassetts and they didn’t.”

Gross said the school is a “money pit” and they should walk away from it.

Timko also suggested protests and Gross spoke of taking over the Supervisory Union headquarters with prominent citizens who the police would have to remove.

In the end, the consensus of the board was to have the town attorney look at the situation.

‘Nobody is looking to close Cavendish, nobody’

Then on Thursday evening, opening the discussion of the GM Restructuring Committee of the GMUSD by noting that the other board members had seen Monday’s meeting, chair Adrienne Williams said, “I want to be clear. The board will not get in the way if Cavendish wants to explore that option (of leaving the GM district.) You want to do what’s best for your town and nobody here will tell you not to.”

But Williams went on to say that’s not the charge of the restructuring committee and it needs to focus on the district’s issues.

“Cavendish is feeling like they are being picked on and I don’t know how to convey they are not,” said Williams. “Nobody is looking to close Cavendish – nobody. We’ve said this numerous times before.”

Williams said the district is “looking for a way for the issues at Chester-Andover – which are becoming critical – to be resolved.”  So the resources of the district can be equally distributed and all the children benefit from them. She said she wants to “pump the brakes on the division on the board. Andover and Baltimore and Chester are not ganging up on the students of Cavendish.”

Perani remarked that moving students to Green Mountain High without knowing how many pre-K children will come to Cavendish reduces the number of students in the building and leaves it vulnerable.

“I don’t believe anybody on this board is out to get Cavendish,” said Cavendish representative Kate Lamphere, adding that she still worries that the unintended consequences of board decisions will “set Cavendish up to be closed.” Lamphere said she wants to see how the proposal would work since it’s a matter of the vitality of the Cavendish community.

Other board members agreed that they support keeping Cavendish Town Elementary open. Several people, including members of the audience questioned the worth of the survey saying that results should have been weighted due to the disparity in population among the towns.

Incoming Two Rivers Superintendent Layne Millington spoke of measures to make the GM district more attractive for parents to send their children.  He said attracting students to the pre-school could be done by highlighting its “day care” function by providing after-school programming and finding a way to run it through the summer months. He then described the situation as  “a balance beam,” saying that cuts make the school less attractive, leading to fewer students and the need for more cuts. Millington said he’s interested in hearing from parents and students about what they want from the school, giving examples of more Advanced Placement courses and athletic and extra-curricular offerings.

One resident said an objection to sending 6th graders to the high school is GM’s PCB contamination. Millington said that mitigation efforts have yielded good results and as for remediation he expects to get answers on that “shortly.”

Lamphere called on the TRSU to issue financial projections on the option that show whether it would benefit students and improve the educational outcomes. Millington said he did not want to step away from the middle school/preschool model.

CLARIFICATION: During both meetings there were references to the Commission on the Future of Public Education, created by Act 183 and known as the “yield bill.” Two people referred to the commission, saying it would start its work this month, which it did, then have an interim report in September with a final report in December.  However,  the report the commission must send in September is about how it plans to do its work, including getting input from residents in all 14 Vermont counties. Then the commission must submit an interim report with some of its “preliminary findings and recommendations, including short-term cost containment considerations” findings Dec. 15, 2024. The final report is due in December 2025. The concern among Cavendish residents was that solutions such as closing small schools would be on the table sooner than later.

In a commentary published in VT Digger, Jack Hoffman of the Public Assets Institute, suggested that the commission really understand the problems in education funding before proposing solutions.