Michael Pelton is a farm owner and operator and engaged community member.
WINDHAM-To the WRED board, WCSU board, and administration,
The repeated failure of the West River Education District (WRED) budget is not simply a reaction to taxes or educational spending. It is a direct response to years of growing frustration with the structure, leadership, accountability, and cost of both the Supervisory Union and the WRED.
The message from voters is clear, consistent, and impossible to ignore.
Communities no longer trust that the current structure is acting in the best interests of the towns it was created to serve.
For too long, the administration and governing structure have operated without meaningful accountability to the taxpayers and communities funding them. Districts are assessed costs they neither fully understand nor meaningfully control. Local concerns raised repeatedly by towns and board members have too often been delayed, dismissed, or ignored.
Even the public meeting process reflects this growing disconnect.
In many local town boards, community members are allowed to participate throughout discussions in a respectful and controlled manner, allowing questions to be answered, concerns to be clarified, and public input to meaningfully inform deliberations.
In contrast, WRED and WCSU meetings often limit participation to a brief comment period with little opportunity for follow-up discussion, response, or engagement. This leaves many residents feeling unheard and reinforces the perception that decisions are being made without genuine community involvement or accountability.
Enough is enough.
* * *
This is no longer a question of asking communities for patience while additional studies are conducted or more committees are formed. The time for delay has passed. Trust has eroded significantly, and immediate action is required if this system intends to preserve legitimacy with the communities it serves.
At least three towns are now openly discussing how they may leave the current structure entirely because they no longer believe they are being heard, respected, or fairly represented within the existing system.
That reality should deeply concern every member of the supervisory union board, the school district board, and the administration.
Communities do not begin discussing withdrawal, restructuring, or alternative governance models lightly. These conversations are occurring because confidence in the current system has deteriorated to a level that can no longer be ignored.
Whether or not those towns ultimately pursue separation, the fact that these discussions are actively occurring across multiple communities should serve as a clear warning that public trust in the current governance model has been significantly damaged.
The WRED and current supervisory union structure are no longer serving communities effectively. Instead of creating efficiency and collaboration, the system has become increasingly divisive, administratively heavy, and financially unsustainable for many taxpayers.
The question now is whether leadership is prepared to listen.
* * *
Specifically, the WCSU, WRED, and administration should immediately take the following steps:
• Freeze all non-essential administrative hiring, expansion, and new program spending.
• Conduct a complete line-by-line review of administrative positions, contracts, consulting agreements, stipends, and operational overhead.
• Present a public restructuring plan within 30 days identifying:
—Administrative reductions
—Consolidation opportunities
—Cost-saving measures
—Positions that can be eliminated through attrition or reorganization
• Require every administrative department to justify its existence, staffing levels, and costs through a true zero-based budgeting process.
• Publish full transparency reports detailing:
—Administrative costs
—Salary and benefits growth
—Staffing ratios
—Historical growth of Supervisory Union overhead compared to enrollment trends
• Establish measurable performance standards for administrators tied directly to:
—Financial stewardship
—Responsiveness to communities
—Operational efficiency
• Return meaningful authority and decision-making power to the towns and local communities funding the system.
• Conduct immediate public discussions regarding structural reform options that restore greater local control, educational flexibility, and community authority while maintaining cooperative educational relationships where appropriate.
• Reform the budget approval process so that the Supervisory Union budget itself is voted on directly by the towns, not solely by the board. Such a change would provide substantially greater transparency, accountability, and public ownership over the costs being imposed on local communities.
* * *
Many residents would support remaining within a shared Supervisory Union structure if local towns once again had meaningful authority over their students’ education, budgets, priorities, and governance.
The current model has concentrated too much power too far away from the communities paying for it. Students have been separated, communities divided, and confidence lost. Towns deserve the ability to pursue educational models that best serve their students efficiently, appropriately, and sustainably while preserving long-term educational opportunities.
I am asking the administration and boards to seriously consider a full range of structural options during this period of sustained fiscal pressure and declining public confidence, including options that require fundamental rethinking of how our schools are organized.
This should include formal evaluation of restructuring Leland & Gray, including the possibility of repurposing the facility for consolidated PK–6 education while transitioning grades 7–12 into a tuition-based model supported by transportation access and inter-SU agreements.
I am not advocating a predetermined outcome. I am calling for a willingness to evaluate structural change at this level of seriousness and urgency. That includes considering tuitioning arrangements, transportation-supported tuition models, and potential realignment or consolidation with neighboring supervisory unions where appropriate.
These discussions can no longer be delayed through extended study cycles that fail to produce actionable outcomes. While careful analysis is appropriate, the timeline must now be measured in weeks, not months or years. Yes, boards and administrators will have to have many, many special meetings, and they will have to work with local Selectboards to accomplish this mission.
* * *
These concerns are not theoretical. They are a direct response to repeated budget failures, rising administrative costs, declining enrollment, increased per-pupil spending, troublingly low student performance, and sustained concerns from multiple communities regarding governance responsiveness and fiscal sustainability.
Maintaining existing structures without serious reconsideration is no longer a viable strategy.
The purpose of public education is to deliver accessible, effective, and sustainable schooling for the communities that fund it. That mission is not served by maintaining systems that no longer align with enrollment realities, financial constraints, or public trust.
The public is no longer willing to accept continued administrative growth while taxpayers struggle and communities feel increasingly disconnected from decision-making.
This is not hostility toward education, teachers, or students.
This is a demand for responsible governance, fiscal accountability, transparency, and respect for the communities that make public education possible.
This budget failure should be viewed not only as a warning, but as an opportunity, an opportunity to reflect, reform, and reimagine how our Supervisory Union can better serve students, families, and taxpayers alike.
This is also an opportunity for our Supervisory Union to demonstrate the type of leadership and structural innovation that state policymakers have failed to deliver. We should seize this moment to thoughtfully reimagine how educational governance can better serve our towns, students, and taxpayers moving forward.
* * *
The boards now face a choice: Continue defending a system that has lost public confidence, or take meaningful corrective action while trust can still be rebuilt.
Trust can still be restored, but only through visible action, structural reform, transparency, and a genuine willingness to listen to the communities that have been sounding these alarms for years.
The voters have spoken.
Now the leadership of the Supervisory Union and WRED must decide whether it is prepared to finally listen and take action.
This Voices Open Letter was submitted to The Commons.
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