Harwood leaders resume building review in search of future efficiencies

April 6, 2026  |  By Lisa Scagliotti

With work on next year’s school budget complete, Harwood Unified Union School District leaders are looking to resume their discussions around school facilities as they search for ways to make future school operations more efficient. 

The first step involves the school board’s Building Use and Visioning Committee, which meets today at 4:30 p.m. both in person at Harwood and online via Zoom and YouTube. 

The committee has been on the front lines of working with the district’s architects from TruexCullins in Burlington. From 2023 to 2025, the firm conducted multiple reviews of Harwood school district buildings to assess their current condition, capacity and maintenance needs. Those reviews resulted in several detailed reports that estimated costs at just over $121 million to bring buildings up to modern building codes and address deferred upgrades. 

School leaders first began to consider major renovations to Harwood Union Middle/High School in the fall of 2023, hosting community meetings to review needs for what is the district’s largest school facility with the longest list of deferred maintenance and upgrades, estimated at over $73 million. That process, however, was halted in spring 2024, when voters rejected the school budget in March. School leaders set aside the building discussion to focus on the budget re-votes instead. 

The board returned to its facilities discussions later in 2024 when it asked TruexCullins to assess the district’s other six school buildings. The architectural team did that work in two phases, offering district leaders reports in 2025 that outlined building needs and estimated costs. The consultants also suggested numerous scenarios to shift school configurations in order to operate with fewer school buildings in the future. 

The Harwood school board took in the building analyses last year, but it did not act on any of the recommendations. 

In January, the board’s Buildings Use and School Visioning Committee suggested that the board delve further into possible changes that could result in running fewer schools. Board members and administrators agreed that effort would require planning well in advance of implementing changes and put it at the top of their to-do list for after this year’s Town Meeting Day budget vote. 

Voters last month then approved the board’s proposed  $51.9 million budget to operate Harwood schools for the 2026-27 school year. That spending plan calls for no changes to building operations, although it did add $500,000 to the building maintenance fund and school leaders have approved $1 million in building repairs and upgrades for the coming year. 

Building Committee Chair J.B. Weir says it’s now time for the committee to return to the topic of facilities and possible future changes. 

Today’s meeting is the first for the group since the March election. It now has several new members, and they have invited all of the district’s building principals to join the discussion and share their ideas on future building use, Weir said. Input from principals will help inform the committee as it reviews potential future scenarios, he explained. 

“The goal of this committee for the upcoming year will be to take a fresh look at all of the original scenarios proposed by Truex – as well as any other scenarios the committee may devise – this time with detailed facility evaluation information,” Weir said. “The task is far from easy.”

This effort by the Harwood board comes as state lawmakers and the Scott administration continue to debate how best to implement Vermont education reforms outlined by Act 73 in 2025. The new law calls for consolidating school districts and revising the formula by which schools are funded in Vermont. 

Harwood leaders have expressed their desire to take a close look at the district’s operations to look for ways to possibly consolidate operations and find long-term cost savings separate from any potential state recommendations that have yet to be made. Harwood leaders stress that they know their district best and have fresh data to rely on. 

“Unlike other districts eyeing potential reconfiguration and consolidation, our schools are at or near capacity,” Weir pointed out. “This likely means that long-term savings will only be achievable with up-front costs.”

Weir said that the building committee first wants to hear from principals. “The review of past options under the lens of the facility evaluation report will begin at the meeting following Monday,” he said. 

Today’s Building Use and Visioning Committee meeting takes place at 4:30 p.m., both in person in the Harwood library and online via Zoom (to participate) and YouTube. Reports referenced here are linked in the agenda, which also includes the online links to tune in.