News & Citizen

Serving the People of Lamoille County with News Since 1881

Volume 123     No 10 No 5569            March 29 2007 Thursday                           Morrisville, VT 05661                        Web Edition

Hyde Park Sets Second Budget by Mickey Smith HYDE PARK – In front of a crowd of about 50 people, the Hyde Park School Board set an elementary school budget of $2,948,307, up around $150,000 from the amount presented at Town Meeting. Continued on Page 2 Click here to check out the new Lamoille Restaurant Guide MW&L Bond Vote April 9  by Amy Kolb Noyes MORRISVILLE – Village voters have much to consider before Morrisville’s Annual Village Meeting Monday, April 9. In addition to the regular Village meeting to be held at Peoples Academy’s Copley Memorial Auditorium, at 6:30 p.m., voters will be asked to cast Australian ballots on five separate spending articles, totaling $13,278,000. Polls will be open from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Monday, April 9, at the Morristown Municipal Building (Tegu Building), on Portland Street.Continued on Page 2 NRCS Office Off Chopping Block? by Amy Kolb Noyes MORRISVILLE – It appears as if local farmers may have persuaded State Conservationist Judy Doerner to keep the Morrisville USDA Natural Resources Conservation District field office open. About 30 people, most of them farmers, attended a meeting with Doerner Monday evening, March 19, to discuss a “VT NRCS Field Restructuring Plan” drafted by Doerner. That plan called for reducing the number of NRCS regions in Vermont from 10 to three, and closing field offices in Morrisville, Berlin and Williston. Lamoille area consumers would have had to drive to a proposed Waterbury office. Continued on Page 2  Visitors For Questions or Comments on this web site please contact webmaster at http://www.kingdomsedge.com dan@kingdomsedge.com Tommy and Julie Graves with their first place Metric Radical trophy fromRat¹s Hole Bike Week Daytona 2007. Show Dates and Times on Page 2 Superintendent Candidates Make the Rounds by Amy Kolb Noyes STOWE – If all goes as expected, Lamoille South Supervisory Union will have two new Superintendents this week. The LSSU Board of Directors is meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday evening, March 28, at the Morristown Elementary School music room. At that meeting the board is expected to act upon the superintendent search committee’s recommendation to hire Dr. Holden Waterman as a one-year Interim Superintendent and Tracy Wrend as Superintendent-elect. LSSU Superintendent Alice Angney and Assistant Superintendent Bob Stanton will both be leaving the district as of July 1. The Assistant Superintendent post will remain unfilled, at least for the next year. Continued on Page 2 LSSU Superintendent-elect candidate Tracy Wrend (left) and interim Superintendent candidate Holden Waterman. Noyes photo LUHS Principal Selected by Mickey Smith HYDE PARK – At a special meeting of the Lamoille Union School Board, Brian J. Schaffer, of Delta Junction, AK, was selected to succeed Sharon Fortune as principal of Lamoille Union High School. Continued on Page 2 Read all the News, Sports and More Click Here To Subscribe Today Looking for something? Search for: Copyright © 2004 News&Citizen Inc. All rights reserved. Have a press release? edit@newsandcitizen.com e-mail correspondence concerning advertising should be addressed to news@newsandcitizen.com

Things Look This Way to Me

Editorial by J.B. McKinley 3/29/07

Much to Gain

The Lamoille South Supervisory Union has embarked on a path that may lead to the much desired goal of once again finding a long term, totally engaged superintendent. Since LSSU has for so long a time enjoyed the services of Alice Angney, who search committee chair Cam Page said is “revered” statewide for doing things right, it’s not surprising that officials would like to continue with an administrator as involved with her charges and the community.

Superintendent-elect Tracy Wrend has been fairly put through the same wringer as all those who applied for the top local school job. She fairly competed against the 11 original choices. She was a non-voting staff member of the search committee at first, but when asked to actually apply for the job, she immediately dropped out of the committee. The voting members of the committee are the three towns’ school board chairs.

Search committee chair Cam Page said Wrend already fills “a very demanding responsible job.” She is student services director for LSSU.

“She is well versed in managing a very legally complicated area...” said Page. The job deals with parent/student issues. Page noted Wrend’s job also demands developing a managing a complicated area of budgeting. How does she do at the job she has?

“She’s a superstar at that job,” declared Page.

“I personally would not have recommended her for hire if she had not had the capabilities to do the job and do it well,” Page said.

As importantly, Page explained that consultants told her committee emphatically that it would not be possible to find anyone likely to commit to LSSU for longer than three to five years, especially at the available salary level. That seems to be the hard and fast of the situation.

“The things she brings to us are things we were not going to get,” continued Page. “We were not going to find a long term hire.”

“She has a passion for this type of work and she is committed to this school district.”

“It can’t be stressed too much how ... [continuity] allows an organization to thrive,” Page said.

The way I see it – there is much to gain by hiring a known personality with strong work experience and community and job commitment. The degree to which the search committee is gambling by hiring a competent, but somewhat less experienced, local candidate as schools superintendent is certainly no less than hiring some relatively unknown candidate from far removed and relying mostly on paperwork to make the hire.

Page went on the record that the search committee is confident, very confident that Wrend will do well. They’ve put our money on it (mine, too) and I’ll go farther. I think they’ve made the right call.