BRISTOL — The Mount Abraham Unified School District board last week got a first look at results from a survey MAUSD conducted in December and January. The district received 1,655 responses, which were analyzed by the Vermont Center for Rural Studies.
At their Jan. 20 meeting, board members found out that the initial takeaways from that survey include:
•  Lincoln and Starksboro residents oppose closing the schools in their own towns, and they oppose closing schools in other MAUSD towns.
•  Bristol, Monkton and New Haven residents oppose closing the schools in their own towns, but they support closing schools in other MAUSD towns.
•  Bristol, Monkton and New Haven residents also support “repurposing” schools, while Lincoln and Starksboro residents do not.
•  An overwhelming majority (72.5%) of MAUSD residents oppose raising taxes as a way to solve the district’s problems.
•  They are less strongly opposed (53.6%) to reducing staffing and programming.
•  MAUSD residents support merging with the ANWSD (56.3%) and repurposing schools (56.4%).
The board plans to discuss the data in-depth at future meetings.
See more details on the survey on the MAUSD web page — Click here.