To the Editor:

I am very disappointed with the recent petition by some Whitingham residents that was presented to the Whitingham School Board. I’ve spoken with a few people who signed or almost signed that petition who were led to believe that the petition was to keep our elementary students in town, rather than combine them with Deerfield Valley Elementary.

Combining the elementary schools is only one idea brought up by the facilities committee as a possible option in the ongoing pursuit of a more cost-efficient district. In fact, the actual petition asks to end our collaboration with Wilmington, ending our Twin Valley Schools. The result would force us to tuition Whitingham students (potentially starting with our seventh-graders) out of town - in Sheldon Dix’s words (according The Deerfield Valley News) to “wherever.” The elementary option and our current joint agreement have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

After 20 years of talking about combining, and countless hours put in by board and community members to bring us the information needed to make our decision, we voted and became Twin Valley High School and Twin Valley Middle School. I can’t understand why anyone would want to sabotage what has been a very successful five years.

Two years ago the option of tuitioning our high school students out of town was studied by a group of community members – their study showed that it is more expensive, that you lose all local control, and it was overly burdensome for parents (and potentially dangerous) to transport their students out of town 30 miles or more every day throughout the winter. In sports, Whitingham students would have very little opportunity to play at the larger schools and any perceived “additional opportunities” were not proven to be significant. I know that the bigger schools in Brattleboro, Bennington, and Greenfield have significantly more issues with weapons in school, drugs in school, bomb scares, and a negative culture that you don’t find at our Twin Valley schools.

I have heard some people in town say that they don’t want to “buy Wilmington a new building.” The shared agreement has worked for five years. We share some of their costs and they share some of ours, all for the good of our shared students. The high school building definitely needs work. Let the facilities committee come up with a solution that we can all be happy about.

I am going to quote my niece Tarryn Bolognani who is graduating from TVHS near the top of her class this year. She says: “It isn’t the building that makes the school, it’s the students, teachers, and the community.”

Without the Twin Valley schools we won’t have students or teachers, we will lose our community, and so much more.

Please get informed, ask questions, attend the meetings, and please get out and vote no on May 27 to terminate the joint school agreement with Wilmington. The only schools that we could send our kids to are just too far away, taxpayers will pay more money, and there is no control over the costs. Let’s keep our Twin Valley intact. Any other option just does not make sense.

Kerri Boyd

Whitingham