WHITINGHAM- The Twin Valley School Board’s goal of offering voters a $6.5 million renovation/addition project at Twin Valley High School may not be achievable, according to the Vermont Department of Education.

The board submitted their $6.5 million proposal to the state last month, seeking an initial go-ahead from DOE officials. According to facilities committee chair Phil Taylor, the DOE estimated the total cost of the project at about $7.5 million. “We cut back on a lot of stuff,” said Taylor. “We didn’t make any allowances for new furniture and equipment, for instance. A lot of (school construction specialist Cathy Hilgendorf’s) comments have a lot of merit, and she’s probably right.”

But Taylor said he would argue with some of Hilgendorf’s observations. “They advised us to consider installing sprinklers,” he noted. “We decided to go with non-combustible materials and egress. Sprinklers would price us right out.”

Taylor said he didn’t have any desire to try to redesign the project to shave another $1 million off the budget. He asked whether the board should proceed with a bond, as previously planned. “I don’t have it in me to do more,” he said. “It’s a dead door. If I could make a recommendation, why don’t we have a Town Meeting in Wilmington with all the administration, Ronda Lackey, Win Goodrich, people who are authorities, and talk about whether we can exist without consolidating. At least people will be making fully-informed decisions.”

Board member Jack Kincella said the board needed to gather information to offer voters a whole picture of the costs they faced with any plan. Board member Doug Swanson said the information should include budget projections into the future. “We’ve cut our budgets,” Swanson said. “You’re not going to see budget increases of less than one percent any more. That, on top of (a $7.5 million bond) is going to be the demise of the renovation.”

TVSB Chair Seth Boyd said the $7.5 million bond might renovate the high school, but taxpayers would still face the cost of work that needs to be done at Whitingham School and Deerfield Valley Elementary School. But Boyd said it wasn’t only cost that made consolidation a better option. “It’s also about the kids,” he said, “not just the almighty dollar.”

Windham Southwest Supervisory Union Superintendent Dr. Jack Rizzo said he looked at the issue of renovation versus consolidation without the veil of politics. “With the kids-first policy, we leave the politics out,” Rizzo said, “but is it okay to shift gears and say “Hey, is it in the best interest of teenagers to renovate a money pit?’ It’s all in how we present it.”

Rizzo said the district’s high school should be a showpiece, a model by which people measured education in the community. “Your school system gets its notoriety from the mother ship,” he said, referring to the high school. “The mother ship has to have the best and brightest, wonderful fields, maybe a theater. With all due respect to Wilmington residents, I see that as being possible here (at Twin Valley Middle School).”

Whitingham Elementary/TVMS Principal Keith Lyman asked why the consolidation had been rejected during straw polling earlier this year. “Governance,” said Taylor, “and there was concern about the economic impact of losing that building in the middle of (Wilmington). And people didn’t believe that the state would be forthcoming with the school construction aid, which is a fair assessment.”

Kincella brought the conversation back to the question of how the board would proceed next. He urged board members to begin gathering data. “If we don’t, we’re going to continue to procrastinate,” he said. “Consolidation is going to require more work and understanding. The majority on all boards understand this, and that’s where we’re going. We have to stand up and tell folks that we have to do what’s best for the community in the long term. I was the first to say we had to go down this road (renovation) because that’s what folks asked us. This (DOE report) tells me we can’t afford to do it.”

TVHS Principal Frank Spencer suggested board members take the discussion back to the Wilmington and Whitingham school boards, and make a decision at a combined Whitingham/Wilmington/Twin Valley board meeting on October 5. “If you decide on October 5 to move forward, you’ve got time to have a formal vote at Town Meeting,” he said. “If people want to come and hear what’s being said and put their two cents in, these are public meetings.”

In other matters, the board considered a letter drafted by Taylor in response to Vermont Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca’s request to every Vermont school district to cut their budget by two percent. The request was issued by Vilaseca under Vermont’s “Challenges for Change” legislation, and seeks to cut the state’s education costs by about $23 million. Twin Valley board members have objected that, while school budgets around the state have skyrocketed, sometimes by as much as 9% in a single year, their budget increases have averaged less than one percent over the six years the district has existed.

In his strongly-worded letter, Taylor suggests the Legislature’s action endangers the future of Twin Valley, and unfairly burdens smaller school districts. But Taylor said he wasn’t sure sending the letter would have any benefit. “Part of it is the futility of responding to this. I don’t know whether it will do any good, but I want to make it clear that there is an inequality of educational opportunity here.”

The two percent cut is voluntary, but if he Vilaseca can’t deliver the cuts voluntarily, the Legislature has asked him to return with a recommendation for further measures. “Ultimately what will happen as districts around the state say ‘Go jump in a cold lake,’ it will become a mandate,” Rizzo said.

Rizzo said he sees a connection between the two percent cut and another bill encouraging voluntary consolidation. “I think they’re getting at the consolidation piece,” he said. “It’s not consolidation for consolidation’s sake, it’s to reduce people. If you consolidated, would you need four principals?”