Republished from December 21 newsletter of the Vermont Standard

Responding to a request from the Town of Woodstock Selectboard, local state legislators and education leaders discussed the financial impacts of addressing declining school infrastructure in a presentation to the town governing body Tuesday evening.

State Rep. Tesha Buss (Windsor-5), a member of the Vermont House Education Committee who represents the towns of Woodstock, Plymouth, and Reading in the State Legislature, took the lead in presenting a report, entitled “Addressing Our Crumbling Schools,” to the selectboard and public in attendance at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled board meeting.

Buss was joined at the presentation by Vermont Senate Majority Leader Alison Clarkson of Woodstock and Ben Ford, the vice chair and clerk of the Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) School Board and the chair of both the school district’s Finance Committee and its New Build Working Group for the proposed new Woodstock Union High School and Middle School (WUHS/MS).

In a phone conversation last weekend, Buss said that selectboard members had asked for the presentation because of taxpayer apprehension about the potential cost of what was then projected to be an $80-85 million bond issue to fund the new school. That projected figure climbed to $99 million when Ford presented to the selectboard following Buss on Tuesday night.

The Vermont Standard is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving Woodstock and other Windsor County towns.