A New York school superintendent has been selected to guide upcoming merger discussions among the Otter Valley Unified Union (OVUU) School District and neighboring districts, a process focused on district organization rather than the closure or consolidation of individual schools.

Dr. Luvelle Brown, superintendent of the Ithaca City School District since 2011, is one of seven regional facilitators hired to guide the merger committees being formed across Vermont under Act 170. Brown, who was named New York State Superintendent of the Year in 2017, has been assigned to the Southwest Region, which includes OVUU.

David Younce, the lead facilitator overseeing the statewide merger exploration process, said facilitators were assigned outside the regions where they live to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest. Brown lives and works in New York but is familiar with southwestern Vermont school districts; Younce worked with him on professional development and other projects while serving as Mill River superintendent and said Brown “knows this region really well.”

The discussions come as rising education costs, declining enrollment, and looming school building needs have led lawmakers to conclude that Vermont’s education system is not financially sustainable. Vermont’s roughly 80,000 students — about the enrollment of a single large urban school district in some other states — are spread among 119 school districts. Act 170 is part of a broader overhaul that also includes major changes to how Vermont funds its schools.  

Act 170 represents a shift from Act 73, passed last year, which envisioned state-directed redistricting. Younce said Act 170 instead created what he called a more “community-rooted process,” giving districts an opportunity to explore possible solutions themselves.

But Brown’s job will not be to persuade the districts at the table to merge. Younce said neither he nor the regional facilitators have been given a target for how many mergers should result.

“I don’t determine, and our team does not determine, like, we’ve got to have a certain amount of mergers, or this was not a success,” Younce said.

Any merger proposal that comes out of the process would ultimately have to be approved by voters in the affected districts. These votes are scheduled for March 7, 2028, and any new districts approved through the process would not take effect until the 2029–30 school year.

OVUU Board Chair Laurie Bertrand, who will represent the district in the discussions, said she intends to take a similarly open approach. 

“What I need to do first is go in there with an open mind and hear what everyone else has to say,” Bertrand said. But she said she also needs to know what OVUU’s six communities are thinking and urged residents to participate in the district’s survey and working groups. 

OVUU’s preliminary group

Act 170 placed Vermont school districts into preliminary regional groupings as a starting point for merger discussions. OVUU was initially grouped with the Barstow Unified Union, Ira, Mill River Unified Union, Quarry Valley Unified Union, Rutland City, Rutland Town, and Slate Valley Unified Union school districts. The groupings are still being finalized as districts around the state request changes, but Younce said none of the requests he had received as of Monday would affect OVUU’s group.

The groupings should not, however, be viewed as maps of future school districts. 

“The only thing prescribed here is get around the table, talk about what you’ve got in these communities, talk about what you’d love to see for kids, and how do we build something that could be a better version than what we’re doing now,” Younce said.

Bertrand said one question she wants the process to answer is what each of the other districts does well — and where OVUU might have strengths that could benefit them.

“What do they do that we also do or that they do better than us, or that we do better than them, that could make us stronger together?” she said. “If we’re not going to be stronger, I don’t know why we would do this.”

What happens next

The participating districts vary considerably in size, from tiny Ira to Rutland City, with roughly 1,700 students. OVUU, with about 1,300 students, is also one of the larger districts in the group. Given those size differences, the committee will need to decide how to provide proportional representation. Younce said options include weighting representatives’ votes by district size or giving larger districts more representatives. Bertrand will represent OVUU, but the district could ultimately have additional members.

The committee must hold its first meeting by Oct. 15, with early meetings expected to focus largely on organization and reviewing Act 170.

From there, the committee will have nearly a year to explore possible merger configurations among the participating districts. A final report is due by September, 2027. If the committee recommends a merger, the proposal would then go through state review before the March 2028 votes.

Meetings will be open to the public, with opportunities for public input and virtual access expected to be available. Meeting information will be posted through local school district websites.

Bertrand said she plans to report back to the OVUU community after each meeting, with updates to school staff and information shared more broadly through channels such as Front Porch Forum.

“We’re going to try to let people know as each step — or each meeting — happens,” she said.

For now, Younce said, the task is to get representatives from the participating districts around the table and begin exploring what, if anything, they might want to build together.