MARLBORO — The Marlboro School Board wishes to express its condemnation of the injustices that have persisted within the Vermont schools' pupil weighting system over the last 20 years.
The 2019 Pupil Weighting Factors Report laid bare the egregious inequities that have existed for two decades, and the utter failure of the Agency of Education and Legislature to analyze and rectify these inequalities.
The Marlboro School has felt this malfeasance most keenly in the last few years as we have attempted to make necessary infrastructure repairs. Our building has been in desperate need of substantial repairs for a number of years, but the financial strain that a new roof, for example, would place on the taxpayers of Marlboro has forced the Board to repeatedly delay this and other much-needed renovations. While we have dutifully worked within the constraints of the current inequitable system, we've run out of Band-Aids.
The conclusions revealed by the Weighting Study clearly point to gross failures within the Agency and the Legislature to monitor and assess enacted policies that place an undue financial burden on many Vermont communities while benefiting others. This inequality is unconscionable. That our state leaders have allowed this to happen through their inattention, year after year, is unacceptable.
Though a failure of omission rather than commission, the financial hardship to the taxpayers has been the same regardless.
We insist that the Legislature implement the report's recommendations immediately, to make amends for the burdens it has inequitably placed upon taxpayers for decades. This immediate correction will assist our town - along with many others throughout the state - in protecting our students' rights to a safe and secure place of learning while relieving our taxpayers from the undue burden of legislative oversight failure.