RIPTON — The town of Ripton, for the first time in more than two centuries, will enter this fall without a local public school.

The Addison Central School District board on Monday voted unanimously to shutter tiny Ripton Elementary School (RES) for the 2025-26 academic year while it sizes up the future of an RES that’s been decimated by declining enrollment.

The board also directed ACSD Superintendent Wendy Baker to transfer Ripton’s roughly 22 grades 2-5 children to the neighboring Salisbury Community School this fall. It had already been decided that Ripton’s anticipated three K/1 students would attend Salisbury School this fall because the cohort was too small.

The board arrived at its decision after more than two-and-a-half hours of debate and after considering a head-spinning array of motions and amendments to those motions.

While there were differences, all board members agreed the decision to close RES — at least temporarily — was a painful one.

“I was dreading this,” board member Jamie McCallum of Weybridge said.

“It will be very hard for people to go through this.”

Ripton residents have battled for around four years to keep their school open as student numbers have declined. Fearing RES might be on the ACSD’s chopping block, Riptonites voted overwhelming in 2021 to exit the district to try and form their own, independent Prek-12 system. But the logistics and financial implications of making that transition proved untenable, and residents voted to rejoin ACSD in September 2022.

Locals until recently held onto a flicker of hope that RES could at least serve kids in grades 2-5 during the 2025-26 school year. Forecasts called for 11 students for a grades 2/3 class, and 11 for a grades 4/5 class in the fall. This would have conformed to the ACSD’s recently revised policy stipulating classes of at least 10 students, from no more than two grades.

That plan suffered a fatal setback last month when several Ripton parents told ACSD officials they wanted their children to attend a different ACSD school next year, based in part on concerns of RES’s growing instability and/or a desire to keep siblings together in one school.

Those exit requests, according to Baker, pared the prospective incoming ’25-’26 RES students to just 14 total in grades 2-5.

With that in mind, many locals who’ve been fighting to keep RES open have pivoted to urging district leaders to craft a dignified closure plan and smooth transition for Ripton students. So for many, Monday’s closure decision proved somewhat anticlimactic, though it bears parsing through some of what the panel didn’t do.

For example, the board didn’t initiate a formal closure process for RES under article 14 of the district’s articles of agreement. Among other things, article 14 would’ve called for at least 10 of the board’s 13 members — and a majority of voters in the seven-town ACSD — to endorse closure of RES.

If the board and ACSD electorate approved, the school building would be offered to the town for $1, “provided that the town agreed to use the property for public and community purposes for a minimum of five years.”

ACSD currently includes schools in Bridport, Cornwall, Middlebury, Ripton, Salisbury, Shoreham and Weybridge.

Only Middlebury ACSD board rep Steve Orzech voted in favor of pursuing article 14 on Monday. Those opposed cited, among other things, what would be lengthy closure timeline under article 14 that might not be completed prior to this fall.

WHERE TO SEND THEM?

Board members also differed on transition options for the soon-to-be displaced Ripton students.

Members Ellen Whelan-Wuest of Cornwall and McCallum suggested Ripton families be given more choice in which other ACSD elementary school to send their children, as opposed to the board’s majority position that the entire RES student cohort should move to the same school (Salisbury).

“It does feel like the right thing to do … to consider the exceptional nature of the thing we’re talking about, and that’s why I originally was advocating for an opportunity for families to have some agency on where their kids go to school, in this particular case,” McCallum said. “Do I think it will destroy our ability to educate them in the best way we can? No, I do not.”

“My intention is to give us more time to figure out the future of (RES) and provide the people in the families most impacted by the loss for their community school, for at least one year, some options and some agency within this decision,” Whelan-Wuest said.

Other board members countered that separating the Ripton children might disrupt the sense of community and camaraderie they’ve been sharing since kindergarten. They were also reluctant to set a precedent for intra-district school choice in ACSD.

The district’s limited school transfer options are outlined in ACSD’s policy C30.

“I have some equity concerns when it comes to offering parents the choice to be able to send their kids to whatever school they choose, and also not providing transportation,” board member Laura Harthan of Middlebury said.

Board member Mary Heather Noble of Middlebury agreed.

“Though it seems like a compassionate offering to families in Ripton, I have concerns about equity and choice,” she said. “I have concerns about setting a standard to allow parents to choose where (their children) want to go, when we don’t really have the infrastructure in our district for that.”

ACSD in January estimated Salisbury school’s 2025-26 K-5 enrollment — minus Ripton children — at 69 students. Adding roughly 20 Ripton students would push it to 89. Middlebury’s Mary Hogan Elementary, with around 340 students, is by far the district’s largest grade school.

Baker said she’s confident Salisbury will be able to handle the extra Ripton students, who’ll be extended busing to that school.

RIPTON RESIDENTS

A handful of Ripton residents weighed in on the board’s decision after the final board vote had been tallied. Those commenting largely voiced frustration with Salisbury Community School being picked as the only option for Ripton kids next year.

“You keep using the word ‘wellbeing’ of the families of the students,” Samantha Isenberger said. “A lot of the wellbeing of the students is dependent on the wellbeing of the family. A decision like this — to spread out the families in a way that complicates and has less resources available and opportunity for the parents to be more present at home and more present at the school their child attends — is really concerning. And that doesn’t promote wellbeing, in my opinion.”

Resident Wendy Harlin told the board “(Salisbury Community School) is a lovely school with a lovely staff. But it doesn’t make any sense for the majority of our kids to go there, when their parents work in Middlebury, where their siblings are going to middle school and high school.”

Harlin thanked the board for its effort in considering RES’s fate, but said she believed Monday’s deliberations seemed dispassionate.

“The majority of the conversation tonight was so clinical that it was absolutely infuriating,” she said.

Some board members attributed the “clinical” nature of their discussion to Robert’s Rules of Order, a parliamentary guide.

“The argument that (Robert’s Rules are) ‘the only way to have a civilized, complicated conversation in decision making’ I think is overly simplistic, and I think it’s something we should be thinking about how it can hinder hard decision-making through conversational discussion,” Whelan-Wuest said.

Monday’s decision offers finality only for next school year; it doesn’t speak to the long-term future of public education for Ripton and future use of the building. The district will explore potential short-term uses for the structure, which could keep the building teed up for a future resumption of classes — if Ripton sees a sizable influx of school-age children. But a statewide and local housing shortage makes that a tough proposition.

Meanwhile, finality is starting to set in for RES children, faculty and staff.

Roxanne Greene, the school’s associate principal, wrote in her April 1 newsletter that April 2025 in Ripton offers the ironic juxtaposition of a rebirth in nature and the impending closure of Ripton Elementary School.

“Oftentimes, we are kept in limbo by Mother Nature, not knowing what to wear each day, boots, heavy coats or just a sweatshirt,” she wrote. “This may resonate even more for some of you right now after hearing the result of the board meeting last night from the RES community. In my experience, the unknown can be more difficult, yet that feeling of something ending and a new transition beginning can bring a variety of emotions, sadness, worry, excitement. No matter where you are in those feelings, you’re not alone.”

John Flowers is at [email protected].