School Board Update for Meeting 12/12/24
Hello everyone,
We will be hosting our Regular Meeting, this Thursday December 12th starting at 4 pm. Please join the Board at the Windham School House or on Zoom. The agenda attached below.
On a personal note, it has been a difficult time in the last 2 months for me. I communicated to other board members and select Supervisory Union staff in late September/early October that I would need to take a leave of absence. The situation is still deeply personal to me and completely unrelated to my position as Vice Chair. I regret that I did not find myself in a place at the time to provide much clarity around my leave. I realize the inopportune timing and recognize that communication is sorely needed in our community. Although I was not in a position to personally address many issues, I am now able to continue fully serving on this Board and desire to resume the work I set out to accomplish. I remain committed to our Windham community and apologize for any confusion that my leave has brought!
Agenda-wise, we have a number of discussions and possible actions in our next meeting:
Starting with the School House – Building Updates. I recently sit down for an interview with Chris Mays over at the Brattleboro Reformer: Windham ponders future use of school building
I provided Chris with my own thoughts on selling to the town, what that path may look like, the grant secured by Cathy Edgerly to evaluate the School House for the community, address some concerns heard at our previous meeting, my commitment to supporting the building’s use while the board explores options to sell, and more. I appreciate Chris’ time and encourage everyone to check out the article above.
I can provide a few more clarifications to the prospective School House sale to the town, the programming currently there, and the programming ending/ended.
Speaking first to programs ending, private child-care will be no longer operating by the end of December. The aspiring “day care” has decided to part ways with us for their own personal reasons unrelated to any controversy or particular issue. Additionally, Yoga sessions have finished up in mid-November as the practitioner has a new job without the time to dedicate to teaching classes.
The Windham School House currently hosts other programming such as the Workers’ Center meeting last Saturday which I was able to attend. The Windham Historical Society meets regularly each Wednesday and recently hosted a successful Square Dance event in November.
The first week of November saw the Windham Regional Energy Committee, along with volunteers, utilize the space for building storm window inserts. The Board proposed the space in exchange for storm window inserts at the school to lessen the impact of maintenance costs in the coming months. This proposal was extended only if the logistics and practicality of the deal could be arranged, otherwise the space would still be provided for their free use similar to other programming above. I am proud to say we were able to work out the details, the school has been appreciated by the new inserts and the Committee was able to get their work done. Special thanks to Bill Dunkel, our Select Board, Kathy Scott, Bob Fisher, Heidi Russ, and many more folks for making this work and bringing this opportunity to fruition.
Other agenda items we will discuss: there are multiple meeting minutes that have not yet been approved. Related to this is a discussion around hiring a minute-taker utilized by other union board districts. The loss of our previous minute-taker(s) and the resignation of our clerk has made minutes challenging in the past months. Hiring a dedicated, reliable minute-taker allows all of our Board to fully participate in our meetings and will bring consistency to our obligation to getting these minutes submitted and approved in a timely fashion. We will also be looking at the revised FY26 Budget prepared by our Supervisory Union based on the Board’s direct input. Last but not least, a discussion around Transportation – current life of the bus, possible trade-in opportunities for a new bus, action on transportation stipends, etc..
Back to the inopportune timing of my leave. In that time, there has been talk of resignation and a formal complaint lodged. I value transparency and communication. I also aspire to be consistent in what I believe in and I mentioned resuming the work I set out to accomplish. Namely, demonstrating that Windham School House has a continued viability outside of public education and publicly supporting any reasonable use of the building while our Board maintains our commitment to sell the building for continued use outside of our budget. Part of this intent is my personal support of private child care, in a region that is underserved for child care options. I remain proud of that work to foster a small child care business start-up, private yoga sessions and all the other groups/events that have been hosted at the School House in the past months. My hope is this programming will help inform upcoming decisions by our community and any prospective buyer of the School House which is currently the Windham Town.
I encourage each and every one of you to join our meeting. Have your voices heard. And I will see y’all on Thursday.
Warm Regards,
Dan Roth
Vice Chair
Windham School Board
Event details here: https://townofwindhamvt.com/event/school-board-25/
