A Different Way At Looking At Things

Another day. Another story about a school closure.

This one comes from Vermont and was covered by Vermont Digger.

This story begins:

“On a cold, gray Saturday in March, about a third of all the people living in Windham [Vermont] crammed into the town’s more than 220-year-old white clapboard meetinghouse. One item in particular had driven turnout on this Town Meeting Day: a ballot article that would permanently shutter Windham’s tiny elementary school. It was the third time in three years that the question would be posed to Windham’s 500 residents.”

…

“Over the course of several hours of debate, not one person who identified themselves as a current parent in the school, except for school board chair Abby Pelton and her husband, defended Windham Elementary.”

“It had been a disastrous year at the K-6 school, where enrollment had long hovered in the teens. The school had lost its entire staff to resignations the prior year, and was only able to hire a new teaching principal, Jenna Cramer, with just weeks before the start of the school year. Barely three months later, the board fired her.”

“With no fully licensed educators left in the building, the school reluctantly voted in December to temporarily close the school. Children were sent to Townshend Elementary, 10 miles down the road, for the remainder of the year.”

“For years, Windham had been split down the middle about what it ought to do about its school. But that day, the vote was decisive. By a vote of 82 to 45, the assembled crowd endorsed a ballot item, place on there via citizen petition, to tuition out the district’s elementary-age students to nearby schools.”

“It was the exact step that backers of Windham Elementary had been trying to stave off for years, even in the face of dwindling enrollment and mounting costs. They are far from alone. Across Vermont, in places like Cabot, Greensboro and Ripton, communities facing those problems have resisted consolidation and voted to keep their small schools open.”

“Faced with skyrocketing taxes, crumbling buildings and a steadily shrinking student population that requires a growing number of mental health and social service supports, voters rejected nearly one-third of school budgets on Town Meeting Day. Lawmakers from both parties, education officials and Governor Phil Scott alike are calling for an overhaul.”

“’We are at a true inflection point. And I think there’s a series of challenges that we’ve been kicking the can down the road on,’ said former Vermont Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe, who now serves in the Legislature.”

“There are no easy answers to the system’s myriad challenges, and while state and local agree that something must be done, they are unlikely to come to easy agreement about what that something should be.”

“With only 15 students when it closed, Windham is an extreme example. But the dynamics at play in this tiny southern Vermont town are nevertheless emblematic of widespread trends. Because while very few schools are as small as Windham, pupil counts across the state are nearly all headed in the same direction – down.”

“And Windham Elementary’s bitter, messy end offers one key lesson: simply clinging to the past will not save Vermont’s schools.”

“’The reality is we’re going to change,’ Holcombe said. ‘The question is: will we be leading that change for our communities? Or is it just going to happen to us?’”

…

So here’s some advice for Vermont.

Per pupil spending in the Green Mountain state is $21,219, fourth highest in the United States. So Vermont is not wanting for money when it comes to educating their kids.

Windham’s school, before it closed, received $318,285 per year to educate their 15 children.

Instead of sending these kids to other school districts and losing their learning community forever, here’s what Windham could have done:

Identify and hire two learning coaches (one an expert in literacy and one an expert in problem-solving) for Windham’s 15 young learners. Cost? $200,000 ($100,000 per coach).

Use the remaining $118,285 for building rent (for what we might call base space for the young learners), insurance, equipment, and supplies.

Start building learning plans for each of their 15 young learners, including reading, writing, problem-solving goals in the areas of science, social studies, foreign language, physical education, and areas of personalized interest.

Begin teaching these 15 young learners how to define, plan, execute, and evaluate their own learning.

To go back to Representative Holcombe’s questions:

Will we be leading [this] change for our communities? Or, is it (whatever it is) just going to happen to us?

Til tomorrow. SVB