Rivendell delays consolidation plans amid leadership turnover
Published: 01-20-2025 4:00 PM |
ORFORD — The Rivendell school board has extended its timeline for moving forward with school building consolidation while it searches for a permanent superintendent.
Facing declining enrollment and rising operating costs, the board in November 2023 announced a three-year plan to close one of its two elementary schools and move students to the Rivendell Academy building in Orford.
Since then, the district has experienced unexpected administrative turnover, budget challenges and persistent facilities problems, including a broken elevator.
“The timeline has been pushed off because we had to take care of the basic foundations,” Board Chairman Mark Avery said in a recording of the Dec. 3 board meeting.
Rivendell Academy principal Keri Gelenian resigned suddenly last February after 14 years in the district, and Superintendent Barrett Williams resigned in May. Williams is now the principal of Strafford’s Newton School.
Amid the turnover in leadership, Avery said some tasks were slipping through the cracks.
“You had an elevator that was down for months and it took me one phone call to get it fixed,” Avery said. “What was getting done?”
Rivendell’s budget was rejected by voters last March, forcing a second round of balloting. After shaving $500,000 from its original proposal, voters approved a $15.3 million budget on June 1.
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Jennifer Botzojorns, a longtime educator and former superintendent of the Kingdom East School District, came on board as Rivendell Academy’s interim principal last February. Following Williams’ departure, she agreed to take the helm as interim superintendent.
The board has hired Elaine Pinckney, a consultant with the Vermont School Boards Association, to lead the search for a new superintendent. The board’s goal is to have a hire in place by March 1, Pinckney said by phone Friday.
The search committee, which includes three board members, a high school administrator, an elementary teacher and the district’s human resources director, is in the process of rating applicants and will decide next week on which candidate to invite for interviews.
Meanwhile, the School Board is putting together a public statement that will address its strategic plan and next steps in the consolidation process, Botzojorns said by email Friday.
The interstate district serves roughly 413 students in grades K-12 from Fairlee, Ve rshire, West Fairlee and Orford. Students i n grades 6-12 attend Rivendell Academy in Orford. Samuel Morey Elementary in Fairlee and Westshire Elementary in West Fai rlee serve grades pre-K to 5.
The board has not decided which of the two elementary schools will be slated for closure, and has not ruled out shuttering both. It is analyzing cost savings for different scenarios.
The board read into the Dec. 3 meeting minutes a statement that while “we are still looking to consolidate campuses, we realize that it will take a bit more time before intelligent decisions can be made to focus on quality education.”
The consolidation plan would include combining classrooms to provide multi-age instruction.
Fairlee representative Clement Powers outlined the particular advantages of closing Samuel Morey at the board’s Dec. 3 meeting.
The district owns the building outright, which allows for more flexibility in repurposing it, he said. Samuel Morey’s campus sits so close to a highway that traffic noise is a distraction, and closing it would not increase bus travel time for its students, who would likely attend school on the Rivendell Academy campus in Orford. The two campuses are just over a mile apart.
Closing Westshire would be a more risky proposition, Powers said.
“If we were to choose to close Westshire,” Powers said, “I think it would fracture our district,” significantly increasing travel times for students in West Fairlee and Vershire. Famiiles, Powers said, “would ultimately decide to leave the district.”
Christina Dolan can be reached at cdolan@vnews.com or 603-727-3208.