GMUSD board wrestles with bullying and governance

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Last Thursday’s Green Mountain Unified School District Board meeting took up the second half of the behemoth agenda that the board started the week before. Before beginning the meeting, board chair Lisa Sanders of Cavendish asked that only one person speak at a time, with no side conversations,  to help the meeting go more smoothly.

Info on hazing and bullying

Last Thursday, the board heard stories of bullying in the high school and as well as an offer of help from Mary Gannon of the NAACP to improve “school culture and belonging.” The board asked Gannon to propose a presentation for a future meeting.

Kicking off that discussion, Andover board member Shayna Kalnitsky suggested that a “longitudinal data set” with information gathered over three years highlighting trends would be more valuable than a snapshot.

Kalnitsky noted that every school in the state is required to report various types of disciplinary incidents and that accessing the last three years of the information available from the Agency of Education would be beneficial.

Sanders asked if the board could get notification when incidents are happening. Two Rivers Superintendent Layne Millington said that was “operations,” which is not the board’s role.

“There’s a fine line between what we’re doing and micromanaging,” said board member Jerry Ucci of Chester.

“It’s also the case that it’s our job to do that sort of checking,” responded Sanders.

Board member Katie Murphy of Chester said that’s the kind of information she has asked for, and that information used to be found on principals’ reports.

Kalnitsky moved that the board be provided with the three year longitudinal data of state reportable incidents including “suspensions and expulsions, hazing, harassment and bullying complaints, violent crimes, weapon possession/use and removal to an alternative educational setting.”

The motion passed without opposition although several members did not vote.

Policy governance…or not

The debate over aspects of a model to regulate interaction between the school board and the administration continued last week with the board deciding to pause the administration’s work on “policy governance” while it decides whether to continue with it or scrap it. Policy governance is a system in which the board focuses on policies and goal setting and leaves it to management to achieve those goals and be evaluated on their results.

One problem is that the Green Mountain board entered into the process without first agreeing upon all its goals, as well as the boundaries for management. This has turned some past meetings contentious and that’s what happened last week.

The agenda item was the interpretation of a provision that states that the GM board expects students to develop skills that will make them “adaptable.” There were a number observations that the results were not quantifiable so success could not be measured. Millington asked the board if it was really committed to policy governance.

“We have not really been following policy governance,” Millington said, adding that if the board is not committed, that’s fine.

Kalnitsky said that budget season was coming and she would rather be focused on voters getting a value for their taxes that’s “very clear to measure and see, because this (parts of the policy governance) seems a little wishy-washy.”

Calling the discussion “Groundhog Day,” board member Adrienne Williams of Baltimore said this was the same conversation over and over, making her feel less engaged than she’s ever been.  “There’s been this whole dynamic of ‘Let’s just micromanage under the guise of policy governance.’ I don’t find that that type of management is professional,” said Williams noting that she thought the board and staff were wasting time.

“I almost hate coming to meetings at this point,” said Williams, noting that the buck stops with the board without policy governance.

Board member Caitlyn Miller of Chester moved to table the policy that was being discussed until the board has a conversation about policy governance and a direction forward. The motion was amended to say the staff should pause work on the interpretations until there is a decision.

Newer members asked for more in-depth training on policy governance before a future discussion so they would be equipped to take part.

Committee assignments 

Assignments for several board committees have been left hanging and after some discussion the board put the following members on committees:

• Legislative Committee – Anne Henshaw and Donovan Nichols
• Community Outreach – Anne Henshaw, Donovan Nichols and Caitlyn Miller
• Facilities – The previous committee had not met for some time and Millington thought the board might leave it for now.

New recording secretary suggests secret minutes

During the public comment period, Sophie Stone, the board’s new recording secretary, said she was concerned about the detail some board members have requested in its minutes and wanted the board to consider what the meeting minutes are for.

“They are for the public’s use,” she said. “I would like the board to consider if they want more detail in the minutes, maybe having something that’s just for the board instead of that being published,” said Stone.

Under Vermont’s Public Records Act, any document created by a municipality (and school districts are considered to be municipalities) must be accessible for public inspection and copying and may not be destroyed. So any “just for the board” minutes could not be withheld from public requests.

“I’ve never done so much detail for minutes before … for the protection of the board too, there’s just a lot of discussions and back and forth that I don’t think the public needs to hear,” she said, adding, “It might not come off as a discussion …  sometimes the board can come off different ways to each other and I would never want that kind of attitude or any of that to come out in the minutes online.”

She also suggested that if a board member wanted to something detailed  — “word for word” — for the record, it could be added to a folder, “but maybe doesn’t need to be for the public to read.”

“I just would like the board to consider that for their own protection and what we want to establish for the public and all of that.”

Stone asked that the board consider her suggestions “privately or in executive session or with Layne.” Vermont’s Open Meeting Law prohibits private meetings of a board unless the reason for the meeting fits one of the prescribed exceptions in the law, which this does not. (1 VSA 313)

Questions about CTES and the town library redux

The board voted to form a subcommittee to work with the board of the Cavendish Town Library on issues having to do with the ownership structure peculiar to the building it shares with Cavendish Town Elementary. The library is housed in a building attached to the school.

The library was also built with community funds and is not owned by the school district (as the school is) but it sits on a combination of library and school property. Ahead of the Act 46 merger that created the GM district, the Cavendish school board gave the library a 99-year lease to ensure it would not be affected if the elementary school was closed and the school building sold.

Currently, the school pays for the library to be open to students (and closed to the public) for set hours each week and for a portion of the librarian’s salary. The most recent wrinkle concerns insurance.

According to library board member Sandra Russo, the library has liability insurance, and thought it was insured for property damage through the Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust. But there is now some question about that. Millington told the board that he was having difficulty getting “legal” to weigh in on this because of the complexity of the situation.

After some discussion, the board formed a committee to look at the situation and work out an agreement with the library. Part of the charge was to allow the committee to contact the district’s lawyers for advice. The following members were appointed:

• Penny Benelli
• Shayna Kalnitsky
• Lisa Sanders
• Donovan Nichols