To avoid draconian cuts, Harwood considers closing two schools next year
Realigning middle schools also possible
October 20, 2026 | By Lisa ScagliottiPreliminary calculations for next year’s budget to run Harwood schools have district leaders contemplating closing two elementary schools and restructuring the district’s middle schools as soon as next fall.
Presentation slide from the Oct. 14 Harwood School Board meeting.
A proposal to close two of the four elementary schools in the Mad River Valley comes as the district is eyeing an even bigger move to combine all of those schools into one facility – a step that would likely take several years to implement if proven feasible.
Administrators and the school board in the Harwood Unified Union School District are now juggling the dual daunting tasks of building a budget to run the district for the 2027-28 school year, while envisioning how to shrink its facility footprint to lower overhead costs given declining student enrollment and growing maintenance needs in aging school buildings.
These moves are also happening as a bigger-picture effort to consolidate school districts across the state is just getting under way, with a goal of having proposals to share by the end of 2027, according to legislation enacted this summer. Harwood is to work with Champlain Valley and Mount Mansfield Union school districts to explore possible efficiencies they could create together. Those meetings have not yet begun.
Last month, the school board got its first budget outlook for next year, in which Finance Director Lisa Estler’s preliminary estimates show that providing identical services to what’s currently in place would mean a budget of $55.2 million, an increase of 6.4% over this year’s $51.9 million budget. It also would include paying the state a penalty of $2.7 million.
The steep increase is driven by rising costs of big-ticket items such as health insurance for school staff, transportation and special education. The prospect of paying a penalty to the state comes as new legislation has lowered the per-pupil spending level that the state sets as a spending threshold. That estimated level for next year is $16,562 for next year, Estler explained. A level-service budget for Harwood would exceed that by more than $1,000 per pupil.
Building a budget that keeps the Harwood district under the threshold would mean dramatic cuts to current school programs and staffing. Estler and Superintendent Mike Leichliter introduced the details last week with a slide in their presentation that says: “We risk hollowing out our HUUSD schools before the system gives us a way to operate more efficiently!”
Deep cuts, real impact
Estler’s presentation suggests that Harwood would need to cut $3.39 million in order to avoid penalty territory in next year’s budget. But it would still put the district “smack up against” the spending threshold.
What might that entail? To reach that figure, Estler’s presentation enumerates multiple categories of cuts, including cutting virtually all transportation, with the exception of rides for special education students, for a $1.44 million savings. That would mean ending daily bus service to and from school, rides for field trips, to and from the high school career center, and bus travel for athletics.
Ending preschool programming and instead reimbursing families for 10 hours per week at private programs could save $517,000, although private preschools do not have capacity for such a shift, Estler admitted. Programming cuts could be slashed by another $700,000; a reduction of $456,000 could come from eliminating academic and behavioral support staff; and cutting athletic and extracurricular activities by just 38% could save just under $228,000.
“The cuts are deep and the impact is real,” Estler said after walking through the list that she said would significantly reduce opportunities for students and make schools look very different.
Board members shifted in their seats as Estler ended her presentation. As the discussion began, Harwood senior Charlotte Burks, a student member on the school board, spoke up. “If you said this to any of our peers, they would laugh in your face. Like, taking away sports, taking away transportation – like all of that. That’s not a school. That’s like walls and a teacher and a chair. That’s like all it is. So I don't know. Scenario One doesn't work at all.”
Board Chair Ashley Woods replied, “You just made me cry, Charlotte.”
An alternative
After outlining the draconian cuts that a level-service budget would require for next year, Estler offered the school board an alternative: a budget that would come in under the state spending threshold and avoid a penalty. But instead of massive cuts that would gut programming, it would instead close two elementary schools by next summer and rely on a major shift for most students across grades 5-8 starting next school year.
The administration outlined a way to make these changes without major construction at any of the schools that would remain in operation. But that would mean changing where most of the district’s fifth-through-eighth graders go to school.
In the scenario outlined last week, seventh- and eighth graders currently at Crossett Brook would move to Harwood Middle School. That would then free up space for students in grades 5-6 from the valley elementary schools (which are K-6) to move to Crossett Brook. Brookside would remain unchanged for the 2027-28 school year, continuing in its current PreK-4 format.
The presentation does not specify which two valley schools would be shuttered and which two would remain. That level of detail still requires more review of factors such as enrollment, which buildings are the best size and condition to keep, along with operational details like transportation costs and times for students to be bused.
School officials pointed out that the district already has detailed facility reports done over the past several years by Truex Cullins architects that can help inform the facility decisions.
The presentation outlines further consolidation in upcoming years, with Brookside eventually closing and all of its students moving to Crossett Brook; Harwood remaining a 7-12 school; and the valley having a new combined K-4 school at a yet-to-be-determined location. An evaluation is planned for the 32,000-square-foot Cabot Creamery office building in Waitsfield that’s for sale for $2.95 million to see if it could work as a future combined valley elementary campus. The district is seeking an architectural firm to look into this option. Proposals are due at the end of the month. School officials also acknowledge that the Cabot site may turn out to be too costly or otherwise not suitable, which would mean seeking other potential sites to combine the four valley schools.
Steps ahead
Work to prepare the 2027-28 school budget that voters will consider on Town Meeting Day next March is now under way, with the target of having a proposal completed by late January.
Administration officials will be preparing additional details to discuss with the school board in upcoming board meetings as they fine-tune the direction they want the 2027-28 budget to take. Next week’s meeting will focus on enrollment data that could inform a decision about potential elementary school closures for next fall.
Community input will also be a factor. The board’s Public Outreach Committee is looking to schedule community meetings to discuss the school budget and long-term planning. The committee’s chairs, Moretown representatives Steve Rosenberg and Caitlin Lovegrove, held their first session in Moretown recently. Lovegrove has also worked for several weeks to compile an extensive file of budget background information, titled Current Realities Facing HUUSD Schools, that the board adopted last week. That collection of slides is posted online and will be used in community meetings going forward. Aside from regular school board meetings, however, no community meetings have been scheduled yet.
So far this school year, the board and administration, in emails and during public comment times at meetings, have heard from numerous parents, staff and community members in Moretown in particular who oppose any plan to close their town’s elementary school. In contrast, Waterbury school board member Pam Eaton last week said she and fellow Waterbury rep Theo Hanna are hearing feedback that future education quality is a top priority among parents, even more so than what school building students are attending.
One opinion shared with the board at the start of last week’s meeting came from Waitsfield Elementary School teacher Tommy Young, who suggested that a future school district with fewer schools and larger classes could offer more opportunities. “Nobody wants to close. None of you want to sign up to close a school. But if we all came to one and put all our eggs in one basket and made that basket strong, we could offer more,” he said. “This year I have 13 kids in my class... and I’m not the smallest class. Everyone knows kids need choice – they need choice of friends, choice of voice, hearing different perspectives in education.”
Young urged the board to work to convince the public to support big changes ahead. “If you can go to the public and say, ‘We’re doing this,’ and if it shows that you can save, show them that it saves. But also say this is the best way we can offer the most to every kid that comes through our doors. I think that truly is the job of the board.”
For more information, see Harwood School Board meeting recordings on the district’s YouTube channel here.
See budget slide presentations, a budget schedule for board meetings and more information on the HUUSD website under the Budget tab here.