We urge NO withdrawal from WSESD
To the editor: We, the undersigned community members of Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, and Putney, are writing to encourage voters to vote NO on the articles proposing town withdrawals from the Windham Southeast School District in the upcoming town elections. All four towns have absentee and/or early voting options available now.
The questions being put before voters through these articles are ill-timed, driven by an unclear sense of urgency, lacking legal clarity, and linked to concerning tax and school structure implications for all four towns. The two ballot questions ask voters about withdrawing their respective towns from the newly-formed WSESD and giving permission to other towns to withdraw based on their own town vote.
Regardless of our feelings about the merger process, it is the responsible choice for our towns and our children to vote NO on these articles. In fact, given that the new district has only existed for a year and a half — 11 months of which has been spent dealing with the educational crisis brought on by the pandemic — it is impossible to clearly evaluate any potential benefits or detrimental impacts from the merger during “normal” operating times. Certainly, however, people have recognized that the district merger facilitated some increased coordination between the schools during the COVID crisis that would not have been previously possible or easy. However, even these positive impacts do not provide a full reflection of new district operations. This lack of evaluation time for the new district is one reason voting now is ill-timed.
The timing of this vote is also concerning because we are still in the midst of the pandemic. Our administrators, teachers, and school staff have shown incredible dedication, managed unprecedented workloads, and coped with the intense stress and enormous responsibility of serving our community’s children while understanding — and undertaking — risks to their own health. To ask them, the people who educate our community’s children, to disrupt their critical focus — on managing COVID safety and keeping schools open and safe — with the issue of potentially dissolving the district at this time is incredibly irresponsible and unfair. If the vote passes, it will ask teachers to tolerate more uncertainty and stress in the coming year, while administrators and boards shift their focus away from our children’s safety and education to the business of forming new districts. If a key component towards our goal of providing high-quality education is to attract and retain the most talented administrators and teachers that we can, pushing this vote forward and possibly passing it during the challenging time of a pandemic would be in direct conflict with that goal.
The accelerated timing of this vote was pushed forward under the premise that the legislature would be closing a loophole that allows this dissolution vote to happen. No specific legislation is pending at this time. Local delegation members know of no legislation on the horizon; in fact, our legislative delegation seems to share the focus of our teachers and administrators — responding to the pandemic crisis — so that school redistricting legislation is far from their top priority. We cannot speak to how school board and community members determined there was legislation on the horizon that necessitates a vote now; however, we cannot find any evidence to reinforce this sense of urgency which is driving this ill-considered timeline.
The timeline of this vote has serious ramifications, especially around voter awareness. There has been little communication to voters about the implications of this vote, in part because the lack of planning makes it impossible to understand future impacts. There has been no public forum that allows time to debate the pros and cons of this vote. This vote could have dramatic financial, legal, and school structure outcomes, most of which are unclear at this time and are not well understood by anyone, especially the voting public.
One ramification of this vote that does have the greatest clarity is this: if towns choose to withdraw, every town in the current district can expect property tax increases that range from minor to exorbitant. Dummerston and Putney would see the highest immediate increases, with an immediate projected increase for Dummerston potentially upwards of 15 percent by available estimates.
If any of the outlying towns withdraw from the district, that town will have to pay tuition for students to attend BAMS or BUHS or any other post-elementary school. This would likely be an increase in taxpayer cost for that town. If Brattleboro withdraws, all schools in Brattleboro would become town schools and all students outside the town of Brattleboro would have to pay tuition. This would most likely result in increased tax rates for all four towns. Beyond the tax impact, it would also mean that only Brattleboro would have representation on the school board and only Brattleboro Town Representatives would vote to approve the school budgets.
The long-term impacts related to these changes to the middle and high school structure could be devastating for Brattleboro. The potential scenarios have the potential to reduce the BAMS and BUHS student populations and, in turn, the tax revenue from outlying towns for their infrastructure. This would translate to an increase in Brattleboro property taxes and could impact the middle school and high school’s strength and financial solvency. In the short term, it would introduce a degree of volatility in enrollment numbers that would make planning and programming more difficult and that could impact the educational experience for all students.
Putting this decision before voters in the midst of a pandemic and without the exploration that these very serious issues warrant is ill-timed at best and could have devastating impacts on our schools and community. We urge all voters to vote NO on the relevant articles, which will allow our schools to focus on the pandemic crisis that is still underway and give time for these issues to be explored in a more responsible way.
Signatures:
Ann Dixon, Guilford
Maggie Foley, Guilford
Amit Sharma, Guilford
Thayer Tomlinson, Guilford
Sarah Rosow, Guilford
Keri Newton, Dummerston
Joseph Newton, Dummerston
Tammy McNamara, Dummerston
Peter Welch, Guilford
Michael Roberts, Guilford
Emma Hallowell, Guilford
Tosha Tillman, Guilford
Matt Dove, Guilford
Anne Rider, Guilford
Jared Clark, Dummerston
Jen O’Donnell, Dummerston
Mike Euphrat, Dummerston
Jennifer Course, Brattleboro
Timothy Zinn, Brattleboro
Robin Morgan, Brattleboro
Emily Hartz, Guilford
Kitsie LaRock, Guilford
Robin Nilson, Guilford
Helen O’Donnell, Dummerston
Noah Hoskins-Forsythe, Dummerston
Beth Bristol, Guilford
Jared Bristol, Guilford
Gavy Kessler, Dummerston
Corey Joyal, Guilford
Alix Joyal, Guilford
Ellen Rago, Dummerston
Megan Becker, Guilford
Scott Mathes, Guilford
Lauren Cotton, Guilford
Gabrieal Maulucci, Guilford
Britni Christiansen, Guilford
Brandie Starr, Brattleboro
Jessica Nelson, Dummerston
Lisa Ford, Guilford
Molly Stoner, Dummerston
Sandra Cortes, Guilford
Laura Casey, Putney
Nathanael Matthiesen, Guilford
Rob Hinrichs, Guilford
Michael Becker, Guilford
Erin Tkaczyk, Guilford
Michael Tkaczyk III, Guilford
Laura Goldblatt, Brattleboro
Conor Floyd, Brattleboro
Jonathan Gitelson, Brattleboro
Jane Geidel, Brattleboro
Laura Stamas, Brattleboro
Grady Smith, Brattleboro
Amy Ripley, Brattleboro
Emily Marker, Dummerston
Carol Anne Urban, Guilford
Ellen Nam, Dummerston
Karen Duggan, Brattleboro
Anna Hecker, Brattleboro
Tara Davis, Brattleboro
Allison Baum, Putney
William Gallagher, Dummerston
Dianne Clouet, Brattleboro
Cortney Manix, Dummerston
Dustin Manix, Dummerston
Cory Frehsee, Brattleboro
Alexis Moshovetis, Guilford
Amir Flesher, Brattleboro
Claudia Peknik, Dummerston
Kelsey Burns, Guilford
Elizabeth Wohl, Brattleboro
Georgia Morgan, Brattleboro
Bethany I. Ranquist, Brattleboro
Julianne Giordano, Dummerston
Billie Slade, Dummerston
Catherine Martin, Dummerston
Jennifer Rainville, Dummerston
Sam Ogenenoff, Dummerston
Verandah Porche, Guilford
Jacob Leach, Guilford
Jenny Conathan, Guilford
Dana Berry, Guilford
Tom Tucker, Guilford
Beverly Baldwin Wright, Dummerston
Cameron Baldwin Wright, Dummerston
Sara Mockler, Brattleboro
Eileen Parks, Brattleboro
Hannah Lindner-Finlay, Brattleboro
Rebecca Speisman, Brattleboro
Michael Lonergan, Brattleboro
Anna May Seaver, Brattleboro
Rebecca Baiser, Brattleboro
Kelly Pacheck, Brattleboro
Mel Baiser, Brattleboro
Patty Walior, Dummerston
Abigail Mnookin, Brattleboro
Wendy Windle, Brattleboro
Kathy Smith, Brattleboro
Matt Neikirk, Brattleboro
Liz Bassett, Brattleboro
Tessa Carpenter, Brattleboro
Maureen Hart, Brattleboro
Edna Ortiz, Brattleboro
Sharon Carlton Newton, Brattleboro
HB Lozito, Brattleboro
Mel Motel, Brattleboro
Diana Whitney, Brattleboro
Gilbert Green, Dummerston