Merger Study Committee OK’s plan

Act 46 Study Committee Unanimously Agrees Merger is Advisable

LONDONDERRY  — According to a statement released Tuesday, Nov. 15, the Northshire Merger Study  Committee unanimously voted that it was advisable for its member school districts to merge.

The vote was taken at a meeting of the merger study committee held Monday, Nov. 14, at Flood Brook School.

The committee will subsequently send its study report, which details the merger proposal, to the Agency of Education and State Board of Education in hopes that the state board will act on it at its December 20 meeting.

The chairman of the 17-member committee, Jon Wilson, said he  was pleased with the result of tonight’s vote.

“For a committee of this size, that represents a variety of communities, to vote unanimously is a testament to its confidence in our proposed merger. The committee has tirelessly explored every imaginable benefit and implication of merging. While this has been an exhausting process, we have the peace of mind that it has been a fruitful one. With the help of the excellent Bennington Rutland Supervisory Union office and consultant, this committee has produced a proposed governance structure that we believe would lead to sustainable innovation in our school system for generations to come,” wilson said, according to the statement released Tuesday.

The plan outlines a way for the school districts of Manchester, Dorset, Sunderland, Danby, Mt. Tabor and the Mountain Towns Regional Education District — made up of Londonderry, Weston, Peru and Landgrove — to combine into a single school district under Act 46, legislation passed in 2015 which aims to consolidate the number of school districts throughout the state. If eventually approved, through a process that requires not only the state Board of Education to sign off on it, but for townspeople in the various communities to also weigh in, the new district could be technically in place by July, 2017. The incentives for approval include some property tax incentives.

According to the statement, the merger committee will not meet again until early January. In the meantime, some of its members will develop community engagement strategies in anticipation of educating residents on a vote likely to occur next Town Meeting day. To this point, Vice-Chair Rich Grip said, “Now that we have determined merger is advisable and have justified our reasoning with our report, we will move into the next phase of our work which is educating the public on what precisely it is voting on.”