DANVILLE, Vt. (WCAX) – The results are in — the town of Danville overwhelmingly voted to keep its high school open.
The town held a vote Saturday asking community members whether they should close grades 9 through 12 — and tuition students to independent high schools.
This comes after a community member brought a petition forward to have the vote — amid concerns that statewide education reform efforts could mean losing school choice if the school eventually closes.
But the town voted 480 to 75 to keep the high school open.
Channel 3 spoke to Danville’s middle and high school principal ahead of the vote, and she said school choice makes being a public school in rural area difficult.
“There’s something that we as a society agreed upon a long long time ago that was important to us, and that’s educating all kids. And it doesn’t really how much it costs, it doesn’t really matter how many resources it takes, because we value people, and we value our children more than anything,” Natalie Conway, the Danville Middle and High School principal said.
If the closure had been approved, it would only have served as a suggestion to the school board since school leaders learned community members cannot legally make the decision to shut down a school.
