School district advocates for a bigger board

Members of the five-person South Burlington School Board agree they should expand to at least seven to alleviate a workload that’s become too burdensome.

During an Aug. 2 meeting, the board endorsed a plan to expand the number of elected members to no more than eight but were cautious about switching from an at-large to a ward system.

“Our workload feels like a lot to me for just five people. I think it was designed for folks who have more free time than folks who are actively parenting and have full-time jobs,” school board member Kate Bailey said. “I don’t have strong feelings about a number, but I think moving to seven or eight is appropriate.”

Board member Brian Companion said “seven’s the right number, and I would stay away from a ward system — just looking at history it’s been difficult enough to find candidates. You certainly don’t want to have to have two good candidates run against each other because they live next door to each other.”

The discussion comes as the city takes stock of its governance structure and reviews several potential changes to South Burlington’s governing bodies. The city’s charter committee has been reviewing these potential changes for over a year.

Charter committee members have already endorsed expanding the school board, but said they wanted to get an opinion from current board members before sending an official recommendation to the city council.

A separate issue — whether to switch from the current at-large voting system to a ward-based system where candidates are elected from specific districts in the city — is still being debated regarding city council. But officials discussing the prospect seems unanimous that the school board should remain at-large.

Any change to the board’s makeup, through a city charter change, would first need approval from the city council.

For the most part, school board members were clear: The board should be expanded to seven members from five.

Previous board members are agreement. In an editorial published in The Other Paper, seven former members came out in support of expanding the number — comparing South Burlington’s enrollment numbers and budget size to other similar districts like Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District, which has 10 more members than the South Burlington district.

Some current school board directors expressed hesitation to expansion plans beyond eight members.

“I would be in favor of at-large voting, and an increase to seven, (but) I think if it gets any bigger it just gets unwieldy,” School board member Laura Williams said.

Chelsea Tillinghast, another board member, said while she saw the merits of expanding, she had concerns “about a large board not being welcoming to our community and not encouraging our community to come and speak.”

She said she’s observed some community members appear to be intimidated coming to speak before five board members, a superintendent and two students.

“I’m not saying expanding the board is going to make that any easier or much harder,” but that is one of my concerns, she said, adding that there was also potential “for us to be really effective because there’s less people to coordinate with.”

The board will recommend to the city council that it expand the school board to no more than eight members.

Board chair Alex McHenry, in agreement, said that “even at seven we’re going to be relatively small compared to some other districts around here.”