Vermont tuition unchanged

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By Jamie Norton

With many Act 46 issues still up in the air for Vermont taxpayers, at least one thing became clear on Monday: They won’t have to pay any more next year to send their children to Granville than they do now.

The Granville Board of Education debated the pros and cons of increasing, decreasing, or maintaining the status quo of tuition costs associated with sending a Vermont student to the Granville Central School district. While strong arguments were made for both raising and lowering the tuition, ultimately the board voted 5-3 in favor of keeping it at $8,750.

“We’re looking at a probable 0-percent tax increase, so we thought leaving them at a 0-percent increase would be equitable,” said board president Audrey Hicks.

Traditionally, students who live in Pawlet, Vt., and West Pawlet, Vt., go to Granville High School for their secondary education. Wells, Vt., students choose between Granville and Poultney (Vt.) High School, and Rupert, Vt., students attend Salem High School.

While it doesn’t necessarily pull from the same pool as Salem, Granville Junior/Senior High School tries to keep its tuition comparable to that school for those few students who do choose to be a Hordesman instead of a General.

Salem’s tuition is a little lower than that of Granville, and the board considered actually lowering its tuition to match it.

“We could lower tuition and still be financially responsible,” Hicks said. “The reason we even talked about it is Salem’s tuition for Vermont students is lower than ours. We had always tried to stay at the lowest tuition among the competing high schools; I think we found a middle ground that everybody was happy with, so I think we did what was right.”

Board member John McDermott was the most vocal advocate for increasing the tuition, citing the value of the education and the opportunities Granville offers as compared to some of its Vermont counterparts – like Poultney – which is actually more expensive to attend.

“I think it’s a huge value,” McDermott said. “The depth of what Granville offers is significantly better, so why would we ever discount our value? I am not apologetic for wanting to see that tuition increase. These kids are getting a lot of opportunities a lot of choices.”

Also, while McDermott agreed with the assessment that board expects a 0-percent tax increase, that won’t be certain until later on in the year, and his concerns stemmed partially from a desire to be prepared in case of an unexpected expense.

“Share a good year with the Vermont students,” he said. “However, we all should be prepared to share an increase if that does happen.”

Nevertheless, McDermott said he was happy and satisfied with the decision to keep tuition at the same level, and he wanted to emphasize how important he felt the Vermont students were to Granville High School’s continued successes.

“I am not trying to pick on any group of people,” he said. “The district really benefits from Vermont students joining us. They bring a lot to the table, and admittedly, their tuition adds revenue. I’m fine with it, to be honest.”

But even though Granville kept its price down as its best attempt to retain the valuable number of Vermont students that walk its hallways, it’s not completely up to the Blue and Gold. Act 46 could potentially affect tuition rates as school districts throughout the Green Mountain State scramble to decide how to realign, restructure, and choose between designating high schools or opting for school choice.

Pawlet, West Pawlet and Rupert elementary students all attend Mettawee Community School, which currently is a member of the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union; Wells students attend Wells Village School, a member of the Rutland Southwest Supervisory Union.

Under Act 46, however, those two unions could conceivably merge, or new districts could be created with an entirely different allocation of schools. And towns that don’t have a secondary school need to either “designate” the high school(s) to which they would send their students or choose no designation.

If, for example, Pawlet, West Pawlet, Wells and Rupert were to form their own school district, they could designate up to three secondary schools for their junior high and high school students. That would allow them to designate the high schools in Granville and Salem, and the students’ hometowns would pay those specific schools’ tuition rates.

Choosing no designation, or “school choice,” would potentially be the more expensive option for a district’s taxpayers, as they would be forced to pay up to union high school average tuition rate in Vermont, which is more than $14,000.

That makes the price for attending Granville Junior/Senior High School look like a bargain.

“It’s still so up in the air,” Hicks said. “We’re aware of it, but we were basing our decisions on knowing what was definitely going to happen, and we really don’t know what’s going to happen with that at this point.”11