Jeffrey Taylor

If there is a simple way to summarize my position on the issue(s), it’s that all the challenges facing our district are complex and interconnected. Solutions that support the diverse needs of all the students, teachers and staff in our district will likely require difficult decisions. For the School Board to make progress, it must be made up of people that can listen and talk to one another respectfully. To remain open-minded and willing to discuss proposals while always keeping the best interests of our students and teachers in mind.

 

There are a large number of issues facing the district. The neighbors that have reached out to me recently have expressed their concerns about facilities planning and maintenance, a sense of inequity or a loss of choice with adoption of the IB program, changes to special education funding and how that might impact those with the greatest needs, and a lack of adequate support for the mental health of our educational community in a time of uncertainty. How the new Superintendent and the School Board agree to tackle these issues will have an impact on our students, teachers, support staff, administrators, our parents and the tax payers in our communities.

 

I am not running with a predetermined plan or agenda. My graduate research was in the area of turbulent fluid mechanics and I have experience looking at complex systems where small disturbances can have a huge impact on the entire flow field. I am committed to doing the work necessary to understand the diverse needs of our district and to collaborate respectfully with the other elected members of the ACSD school board to propose solutions to these challenges.

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I will try to keep this short, but the topic has come up repeatedly in conversations, and I want to take a minute to address the question of small schools and the potential consolidation of some of the elementary schools. I have had 2 children attend Cornwall Elementary School in the past 10 years. They are now at MUHS and MUMS. Both finished with a strong educational foundation and, having spent countless hours volunteering at the school and observing some really wonderful teachers in action, I can honestly say that the Cornwall Elementary School will always hold a big place in my heart. I don’t want to see any schools closed. The thought of losing the school that I can see from my porch is heartbreaking. But, all schools, small and large, face challenges. Just because a school is small, it doesn’t mean that the number of students in each classroom is small. And, large schools don’t automatically mean large classes.

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My son’s class had 17 to 21 students for the 6 years that he attended the Cornwall school. My daughter’s class only had 10 students, so a decision was made to combine her class with another of similar size for 4 of the 6 years that she attended Cornwall school. Both of my children were in classrooms for the majority of their time in a small school with a greater student-to-teacher ratio than they would have had at the much larger Mary Hogan Elementary School in Middlebury. I’m pointing this out, not to disparage our small schools, but simply to show that we need to be careful and honest about our observations.

 

Earlier this week, I had a mother tell me that she would like to see all the children in the district attend the same elementary school. She lives in one of the 6 smaller towns in the district, and explained that within 2 weeks of her children starting school they came home and told her that the rich kids went to other schools and that their school is for poor farm kids. She said that she has a child that graduated recently and she knows that that messaging was both damaging and is carried from elementary school through the High School. She believes that a single unified elementary school would foster a greater sense of community across the district than our current model that separates families based on the boundaries of our towns.

I’m not necessarily endorsing this approach, but I thought it was a courageous and incredibly well thought out position to express on a very contentious issue. I really enjoyed this conversation because it is the sort of honest, open-minded, discussion that makes me hopeful that we can discuss our ideas, learn from one another and adjust our school district to work for everyone.

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If you have thoughts or concerns please reach out to me. We may not always agree, but I promise to listen carefully and I look forward to hearing from you.