Stephen Bowen: Best way to keep local school may be to close it
Bangor Daily News, September 1, 2007
(excerpt) Local school boards, therefore, have few options before them. They can comply with the law, and give up local decision-making, oversight, and even ownership of their local schools, or they can go to voters and ask for a property tax hike to cover the loss of state funding that comes as a consequence of defying the law.
Or they could close their school, which, as unbelievable as it sounds, may be the best option available.
About a decade ago, the passage of a divisive school funding law in Vermont led one town there, Winhall, to undertake a novel act of civil disobedience. Fighting to hold on to its local school amid pressure to consolidate, the town replaced its public school with a community-created private one located in the same building. The town arranged to have its children tuitioned to the new private school under the state’s town tuitioning law, and students returned to school that fall hardly noticing that in their summer-long absence it had been converted from public to private.
(excerpt) Local school boards, therefore, have few options before them. They can comply with the law, and give up local decision-making, oversight, and even ownership of their local schools, or they can go to voters and ask for a property tax hike to cover the loss of state funding that comes as a consequence of defying the law.
Or they could close their school, which, as unbelievable as it sounds, may be the best option available.
About a decade ago, the passage of a divisive school funding law in Vermont led one town there, Winhall, to undertake a novel act of civil disobedience. Fighting to hold on to its local school amid pressure to consolidate, the town replaced its public school with a community-created private one located in the same building. The town arranged to have its children tuitioned to the new private school under the state’s town tuitioning law, and students returned to school that fall hardly noticing that in their summer-long absence it had been converted from public to private.
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