Southwest Supervisory Union

The Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union is committed to developing life-long learners who contribute to their community & succeed in a diverse and evolving global society.

On behalf of the SVSU and all of our communities, I am proud to present to you the 2017-18 Annual Report. This publication highlights the many accomplishments of our students, staff, schools, and school districts. It provides a glimpse into the many amazing things going on inside our eight schools and highlights some of the impressive work being done to truly prepare our students for success in careers, college, and our community. The report includes a summary of information on the culture and demographics of our schools, facts on the students and staff, and highlights of the productive efforts to collaborate to meet all students’ needs. It will give you an awareness of the leadership team that helps to guide our initiatives. Driving us closer to our mission of providing a learning environment that utilizes all resources to enable students to reach their highest potential and to ensure educational opportunities for all.

One of our ongoing challenges during the past few years has been the Vermont School Consolidation Statute known as Act 46. The SVSU, through its study committee brought forth Articles of Agreement on consolidation and presented them to the Vermont State Board of Education in September of 2017. With state board approval the individual school boards of the SVSU were able to call for the towns in the SVSU district to vote on the ACT 46 consolidation. The vote for Act 46 consolidation was held on November 7, 2017 resulting in the majority of the SVSU towns not approving merger or consolidation. Act 46 is a multi step process, after voting, school districts that did not consolidate are required to file with the Vermont Secretary of Education a plan, know as a Section 9, outlining how school districts will meet the obligations of Act 46 without consolidation. The Vermont Secretary of Education will review those plans and on June 1, 2018 submit plans for proposed school district structure to the Vermont State Board of Education, the state board will issue the approved plans by November 30, 2018. Communities and school districts will have a period of response and rebuttal time before any plans would be final. As always, our goal is to do what is best for all of our students in the districts of the SVSU.

I hope that some of the information in this Annual Report will give you a sense of the high quality of education in our community. I encourage you to take some time to examine this Annual Report and visit our website at www.svsu.org for more details. Whether or not you have children currently in our schools, we hope that you will agree that the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union is focused on providing our students with the support they need to be successful in school and in our community.


Imagine the possibilities,

James R. Culkeen
SVSU Superintendent