School restructuring options include modular classes at CAES, pre-school at CTES

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2024 Telegraph Publishing LLC

At last Thursday’s meeting of the board of the Green Mountain Unified School District, Superintendent Layne Millington unveiled an “Advisory Restructuring Report” that put forward three recommendations for making progress on the issues of under-utilization of Cavendish Town Elementary and over-crowding of Chester-Andover Elementary.

Last year, the board had formed a restructuring committee, but it was unable to come to an agreement over recommendations and turned the job over the Two Rivers Supervisory Union and Millington, who had just come on board as the new superintendent.

Introducing his report, Millington said on Thursday that any solution to the problems would have to be voted on by the board.

The report lists three recommendations.

        1. The first would expand the classroom and office spaces at Chester-Andover. Within that recommendation are three options.

• a. The first expansion option install “high-quality” modular buildings as classrooms or offices separate from the CAES building but out of the flood plain. The installed cost for two classrooms was listed as just under $522,000.
• b. The second option would be to build a stand-alone permanent structure at a cost of a little over $1 million.
• c. And the final option would be to add to the existing school building at the east end near the playground at a cost of $1.85 million.

The next two recommendations were to more fully use the Cavendish Town Elementary building, which currently serves 79 students. That school’s declining student population has been a concern for Cavendish residents, who say that the small student body makes CTES a target for closing in a consolidation.

        2. The second recommendation would be to establish a pre-school for the GM district (which includes Andover, Baltimore and Chester in addition to Cavendish) geared toward full day learning for 4 year olds and half days for 3 year olds, with the school day ending at 2 p.m.

Several board members asked if the school day could be extended so parents could pick children up after work. Someone also broached the idea of school during summer vacation, which Millington said the administration would look into. He also said that pre-school students from other towns might want to remain at CTES for kindergarten and stay on, thus increasing class sizes at CTES.

Millington said that the costs for one pre-school teacher and one paraprofessional would be around $162,000 annually, with an additional one-time cost of $40,000 for setting up the classroom and buying equipment. But he noted that the district would save more than $83,000 annually on the tuition it pays to other preschools, bringing the first-year startup cost to just under $119,000.

The first two recommendations were received fairly favorably, but the third got some push back.

        3. That third recommendation would be to send Baltimore children to CTES instead of CAES, where they now go.

The idea would be to make CTES the school that Baltimore children would attend rather than CAES. According to the report, Baltimore students currently attending CAES could continue that as could siblings in the future. The report said there would be not additional cost to this.

Board Chair Adrianne Williams, who represents Baltimore, said she had spoken with several parents who did not like the idea of their students attending Cavendish Town Elementary because, while it looks closer to Baltimore, the drive means going through Proctorsville Gulf, which can be difficult in the winter. Other members agreed and that recommendation was dropped.

Kathy Muther, who represented Baltimore during the Act 46 school merger negotiations, thanked the board, saying that at that time, she fought to make sure Baltimore parents would have a choice of which schools to send their children.

The board then tabled the discussion  until next month’s meeting,  when it’s expected that members of the public — as well as board members — will have had the time to digest the recommendations and then comment on them.

Budget, bond and new principal at CTES

In other action, the board voted to make curriculum director Emma Vastola the interim principal at CTES replacing Dale Mann, who was hired in June 2023 and recently resigned. Vastola will take up the job on Dec.1.

Also, Millington gave a budget presentation that he said included everything that everyone wanted representing an increase of about $1.5 million  He said with that done, the administration would come back next month with proposed cuts and work with the board toward a total budget.

There was also a discussion of a proposed bond to pay for fixing several capital issues, including a problematic boiler at the high school. Millington pointed to the work of the commission that’s studying the Future of Public Education in Vermont and wondered if spending money ahead of its recommendations was wise if consolidation of schools is on the table.