By Guy Page

Governor Phil Scott weighed in Wednesday on recent local decisions to keep small schools open, suggesting that while voters want lower taxes, the “emotion” of losing a local institution is currently winning out over the “math” of declining enrollment.

Reflecting at his Wednesday press conference on recent votes in towns like Calais and Roxbury, where voters this week decided by about 2-1 to keep the small local schools open, Scott noted that the results were “not surprising,” despite the “unfortunate” reality of the schools’ situations. He specifically pointed to Calais, which is not anticipating having a kindergarten class next year due to low enrollment, calling it “indicative of the future” for many small Vermont towns.

In response to voter concern about rising property taxes, the Legislature is currently developing a plan to restructure school governance into a small number of large school districts, in an effort to reduce administrative and possibly classroom costs. Closing small local schools are a likely outcome of such a restructuring. 

The Governor argued that if these school closure decisions were “working through math,” the choices would be far less difficult to make. However, he acknowledged the deep personal ties residents have to their local buildings. “Nobody wants to close down their own school,” Scott said, noting that many voters likely attended those same schools themselves and view the institutions as vital to their “way of life.”

According to Scott, this creates a fundamental conflict in the public’s appetite for reform. While Vermonters vocalize a desire to see property tax rates go down and the system become more efficient, they remain resistant to the closures necessary to achieve those goals. He suggested that if voters were asked directly if they wanted to pay “30, 40, 50% more in their property taxes” to keep the schools open, the outcome of the votes might be different.

The Governor highlighted a stark demographic shift to illustrate the necessity of consolidation, citing U32 as an example. While the school has a graduating senior class of 134 this year, the incoming kindergarten class for that district is only 80 students. “That somewhat tells you the whole story,” Scott remarked, emphasizing that the state will continue to see this decline.

Despite the pushback in Calais and Roxbury, Scott does not view these votes as a “referendum” on Act 73, the state’s voluntary merger law. Instead, he sees them as a localized effort to protect specific communities, often at the expense of others. He noted that residents in one town might prefer to see a neighboring school close—such as Worcester or Roxbury—if it meant their own school could remain open and perhaps regain its kindergarten.