WESTMINSTER — The Windham Northeast Unified Elementary School District Board on April 6 formally cancelled the District Meeting scheduled for April 9.
According to Board Chair Jack Bryar, the board reviewed discussions with Will Senning of the Secretary of State's Office plus correspondence with legislators Mitzi Johnson, Tim Ashe, Jeanette White, and area town clerks.
“Because of the uncertainty about the length and severity of the current COVID-19 epidemic, the board postponed setting a new date for the time being,” Bryar wrote in a letter to The Commons.
Citing advice from the Secretary of State's office, the board is exploring converting the various meeting articles and the election of Board members into a series of Australian ballot items.
The Vermont Legislature recently passed a bill authorizing the district and other local towns to convert town and district meetings into Australian ballot elections. However, the board has determined that such a vote should take place only when state health officials and the Secretary of State determined that balloting or a new district meeting would be safe.
Bryar said the school district also agreed that it would consult with local towns and pay reasonable expenses incurred by each town to conduct such elections.
The board also authorized setting up a series of ”digital town halls” to explain the proposed budget, and to seek advice from the public as to how to go forward. The first of these will take place later in the month and publicized in the press, and online at WNESU.org.
In addition to the District Reports that have been distributed to town offices, Bryar said the full content of the report will be posted online, and a video walkthrough of the report will be posted in the next week or so.
The Windham Northeast Unified Elementary School District was created by the State Board of Education (SBE), combining the Westminster, Grafton and Athens School Districts.
Despite the current emergency, the District continues to provide public educational services to the three communities while waiting for The Vermont Supreme Court to rule on its appeal of the SBE's consolidation order.