Two weeks ago, the Harwood Unified Union School District Board voted to fill two of Waterbury’s four seats on the school board. Those seats remained vacant after Town Meeting in March.
In doing so the school board accepted the Waterbury Select Board’s recommendation to appoint Dan Roscioli to the board and rejected the town’s recommendation to appoint Elizabeth Brown. Both had previously served on the board as appointees.
At its April 16 meeting, Waterbury Select Board member Tori Taravella (herself a former school board member) strongly encouraged the board to appoint her friend Pam Eaton to the board and the board did just that.
There are lots of problems here. First, the board disregarded the recommendation of the school district’s largest town on who should represent it in our multi-town district. The recommendation to reappoint Brown received neither discussion nor a vote from the school board. That’s not respectful and it’s no way to play nice in a district where perceived internecine feuds and a Valley vs Waterbury/Duxbury schism have existed for far too long.
It's been hard enough, post-Act 46 and merging our entire district, to get people to think of “our schools” and “our school district” without some power grab by folks who took this action when only one member of the Waterbury contingent was even at the table. Based on population, Waterbury has four members on the school board and the other towns have two each.
Taravella should have identified herself as a member of the Waterbury Select Board while she was at the school board lobbying against the recommendation of the board she was elected to serve on. She was fully aware of that select board’s decision and recommendations because she participated in it, voting for Roscioli and against Brown.
Finally, it’s just short-sighted to be so cavalier about respecting the wishes of member towns, as expressed by their duly elected select board members. Imagine if the board ignored the recommendation of the Waitsfield Select Board or the Moretown Select Board on filling vacant school board seats.
Many will recall what happened when the school board rejected a candidate endorsed by the Moretown Select Board in 2018. The preferred candidate challenged the board-appointed candidate the following year in the Town Meeting Day election and won. But not before a lot of goodwill was needlessly squandered.
