When voters receive their ballots on Town Meeting Day one of the questions they will be asked is whether or not to accept the Barnard school district into the Windsor Central Modified Unified Union School District. This past December, the townspeople of Barnard voted to voluntarily merge their elementary school district with the unified district.
According to Vermont Statute 721, which guides the district merger process, once a single district (Barnard School District) decides it would like to join a merged district (Windsor Central Modified Unified Union District), the collective electorate of the receiving district must vote to accept the new entity into their fold. So this March, all voters affiliated with the Windsor Central Modified Unified Union School District will be asked to formally accept the Barnard School District into its unified union. The electorate will also be asked to vote to accept the same articles of agreement that the Barnard voters approved. Policies related to campus sustainability, school closure, and grade reconfiguration were adopted by the merged Board and these policies were incorporated into the articles that the Barnard voters supported. These policies provide clarity and process to any potential future action that may be taken in these areas. The warning for this article has been posted and is lengthy as it is legally necessary to provide all the articles of agreement to the voters for their consideration.
Voters will also see two budget questions; one question asks voters to approve the budget that will be implemented if Barnard is accepted into the district, and one question asks voters to approve a budget that will be implemented if Barnard is not accepted into the district. This is required because the outcome of the Barnard merger vote will not be known before the budget vote and all contingencies must be accounted for in this process.
Towns will experience improved tax rates if there is a positive merger vote.
