Orleans Elementary School

The Lake Region Union Elementary Middle School Board would like to make a few announcements.

ANNUAL MEETINGS: The LRUEMSD Annual School Board Meeting will be on March 9th at Lake Region High School at 6 PM. You can grab a school report at your Town Clerk’s office, town library or on Town Meeting Day for more details. A big change this year has been our move to a sister-school model, and the feedback so far on that change has been mostly positive.

The Lake Region Union High School Annual School Board Meeting will be March 18, also at 6 PM at the high school.

SEATS: The Elementary-Middle School Board has eight elementary-middle school seats that will be up for election on March 9th, so if you or anyone that you know might be interested in joining a school board, there are opportunities available. Four of those seats have incumbents still willing to serve, but we've got vacant seats that need to be filled in Albany, Barton, Orleans and Westmore.

If you might be interested in running, come on out to the March 9th meeting - or if you can't make it, you can also try asking someone else to go and nominate you. Serving on this board is a time commitment of approximately two Monday evenings a month, either in-person or virtually, plus homework time and any meetings for committees that you join. If you're considering this and have questions about what it's like, current board members would be happy to chat with you!

PUBLIC MEETINGS: We’d also like to flag up a couple of big decisions that could come before the voters in the next year.

As our school buildings continue to age, we've been talking about going to the voters for a bond vote to finance building a new elementary-middle school building on the Lake Region High School property. You can read more about this in the Long Term Planning Committee report inside your town report! We'll be scheduling meetings to share information and get your feedback soon, so keep your eyes out for those.

We're also exploring merging the high school and elementary-middle school boards into a single board, with a single budget and single annual meeting. This is a decision that can only be made by voters. We'll also be having public forums to get input on this idea in the coming months.

ACT 73: There are also conversations happening in Montpelier about redistricting on a state-wide level, which could really shape the future of our schools. We're doing our best as a board to respond proactively to Act 73. However, like there was with Act 46, there's going to be a lot that we can't control at this level. So if you're interested in education in Vermont, keep following Act 73 and sharing your thoughts with our representatives in Montpelier.