We are disheartened by the June 10 article in the Addison Independent describing the proposals about the future of Mount Abraham Unified School District (“Consolidation plans would close Mt. Abe”), and not only because we are educators at Mt. Abraham, but also because many of us are community members ourselves with children, currently and formerly, in the district’s schools at all levels.

As parents and community members, we can identify with the desire to keep our elementary schools open. We know these community-based schools provide nurturing environments where our children can learn and grow before setting out into a bigger world. For these same reasons, we also desire to keep Mt. Abe in its established place within the Five Town community.

For the past 52 years, Mt. Abe has provided middle and high school-age students with the opportunity to learn alongside a diverse peer group spanning the Five Towns. Closing Mt. Abe would represent a loss no smaller than the loss of any of the individual town elementary schools, and would not only eliminate a thriving and vibrant school community, but also effectively dissolve the anchor of the Five Towns. This would relinquish local control of our children’s secondary education to the boards of other districts, a circumstance that would be avoided even in a merger with another district.

Our children deserve to attend schools in their communities, yes, and this includes attending Mt. Abe as the unifying center of the Five Towns.

Faculty & Staff of Mt. Abraham Union Middle/High School:

James Eberhardy

Katie Ivory

Jori Jacobeit

Dana DeWitt

Megan Hendee

Wanda Bouvier

Colleen Kiley

Addie Thompson

Brenda Barsalou

Bob Maurer

Brent Crum

Alysa Decker

Eric Decker

Lisa Grzyb

Braden Murray

Simone Skerritt

Jessica M. Little

Alan D. Kamman

Leah Hammond

Fern Aguda-Brown

Matthew Brown

Nancy Standley

Robert Russell

Samantha Kayhart

Mary McGuire

Scott Beckwith

Maureen Deppman

Ann S. Pollender

Nate Shepard

Teresa Smith

Noah Hoffman

Carla Mayo

Michelle Pierpont

Lauris K. Chamberlain

Debra K Bobilin

Amy Mayer

Vicki Bronson

Stephanie Rossier

Kelly Osborne

Karyn Norwood

Katherine Hughes

Dustin Corrigan

Julie Potter

Jenny Koopman

Katie Hamm