GREENSBORO, Vt. (WCAX) – Town meeting day is a week from today, and another Supervisory Union is asking voters how they feel about closing a school.
With Lakeview Elementary home to 27 students K-6, and a nearly $1.2 million budget on the line, some members of the Mountain View Union School District think it would make sense to close the school.
But that’s not on the town meeting day ballot yet. The community will only be able to decide if they recommend a closure to the board, then the board will make the next decision.
Nestled among Caspian Lake in Greensboro, some of those connected with Lakeview Elementary feel strongly about its impact.
“I’d like to see it stay open. Both my children went here. My oldest grandson went here,” said Diane Courtier of Greensboro.
“If you don’t keep that small-town family, people bringing their kids to school together, there’s something that’s lost to the soul of the village,” said Jeff McKechnie of Greensboro.
The towns that are considering this ballot measure are Greensboro, Stannard, Woodbury, and Hardwick.
“I think they should close it because there’s not enough students and the expenses and everything,” said Joe Donna of Hardwick, “I think they also should utilize those resources that have bigger schools.”
Some voters who send their students to Woodbury and Hardwick elementary schools don’t see Lakeview’s full benefit compared to those schools, home to 56 and 222 students respectively.
The conversation about Lakeview’s feasibility is years in the making.
Orleans South Supervisory Union Superintendent David Baker says he and the board began this conversation with staffing and declining enrollment as the biggest concerns.
Using each school’s staffing cost divided by the number of students, it costs $31,000 per student to educate in Lakeview, whereas Hardwick and Woodbury cost roughly $14,000 to educate each student.
The board is studying whether they should close the school in the future. Simultaneously, a group of taxpayers put through a petition to close Lakeview. That’s the impetus of the ballot item, which advises the board on the opinion of the community.
“When you’re going to close a school in a community, it’s a very difficult decision. It’s not always about just the money. It’s about the heart and soul of that community. Yeah. So. So that’s yeah, that’s why I think the board really wants to take the time and just take this as advisory,” said Baker.
However, the Supervisory Union says there are too many variables to predict savings or expenses right now.
Baker says he wants the voters to consider Greensboro’s community when voting.
Baker said, “How can we, whether we call it or don’t close, how can we bring all three campuses on two campuses together so that everybody feels part of the same system?”
If Lakeview is closed, the board can assign the building for other educational use.