For Stannard residents:

While the goings-on in Stannard's School Board (which, in case you don't know, deals primarily with our 7th-12th grade students) might not be of interest to most of you most months, this upcoming meeting might be more so.

As you may know, Stannard is a school choice town for students in 7th through 12th grades, meaning that those students can choose to attend any accredited school and Stannard will pay -- all or a significant portion -- of the cost for attending that school. Obviously, a key component of this program, and of the School Board's responsibility, is to determine whether a student, or rather, in most cases, whether one or both of their parents/guardians, actually lives in Stannard.

Stannard's procedures for determining residency have not been formally updated in some time so some of next week's meeting is going to be spent discussing various aspects of this decision making process. In essence, we on the school board must be sure we are diligently balancing every student's needs with our obligation to be effective stewards of the town's tax funds.

If you'd like to join us, try to get to the meeting near the start time of 5:30pm on November 4th, when we have public comment and discussion. NOTE: Public can join this month's meeting in-person at the OSSU offices in Hardwick as well as on-line or over the phone. I will post the agenda here early next week as soon as it is officially warned.

Thank you, Johanna Polsenberg
Chair, Stannard School Board