Video courtesy of Media Factory.
Editor’s note: The board took up other business and heard from several people about the turf field and Hinesburg board representatives Keith Roberts and Cassandra Townshend made statements about their votes in June to support the turf field project. (Click links on names to read their statements.)
By Claire MacDonald
Hinesburg Record Staff Reporter
The first Champlain Valley School District board meeting of the 2026-2027 school year focused largely on the future – the mandate to explore merging with Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District.
Act 170, enacted in June, places school districts into 20 “study groups” to form merger committees to explore the benefits and feasibility of a potential new unified school district between neighboring Vermont districts. CVSD and MMUSD were assigned as Group 13.
CVSD board members David Connery and Erin Henderson, as well as board chair Meghan Metzler, were appointed to serve on the committee.
Act 170 – in many ways, a continuation of 2015’s Act 46 which first pushed districts to merge – intends to combat the pressing issues facing the Vermont public education system, namely the rapidly decreasing student enrollment seen across the state since 2005 and the rising costs of the schools.
School district mergers and Cooperative Educational Service Areas (CESAs) are two of the act’s proposed solutions.
Metzler noted that the legislature gave no reasoning behind the pairing of CVSD with MMUSD – particularly as both districts have student bodies over 2,000, the target size for a merged district’s enrollment as stated by the act.
“We were by ourselves until two days before the end of the session,” she said.
While the merging of districts is voluntary, participation of schools in the study is required. A merger, if the newly formed committees decide to do so, would not be enacted without voter approval – with a final vote tentatively scheduled for 2028.
“With all due respect to MMUSD, or any other school … I have no interest in consolidating with any other district,” board member Keith Roberts said.
The CESA aspect of the act intends to scale services such as special education, transportation, and curriculum without requiring district mergers. Seven statewide regions are defined to facilitate service sharing. CVSD is part of the Champlain Valley South CESA.
The district organized its CESA board on July 20, Superintendent Adam Bunting said, in keeping with the timeline set by the act.
This fall, this board will elect officers, establish a schedule, and begin mapping its regional assets and needs.
“To me, the greater challenge is understanding the budgeting impact for us without fully understanding what the benefits of the CESA are going to be, particularly as we are thinking about our budgets starting in October,” Bunting said. “Whatever the outcome happens to be in terms of the services the CESA provides, we’re giving it our all going into it.”
Claire MacDonald is this year’s recipient of The Hinesburg Record Journalism Fellowship. In May she graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in political science. She can be reached by email by clicking here.