April 10, 2024
Thank you to all the Essex Westford School District community members who came out to vote.
Preliminary voting results:
The EWSD FY25 Budget (Article 5) Failed: 2,353 (yes) - 3,340 (no)
The CTE FY25 Budget (Article 6) Passed: 3,345 (yes) - 2,354 (no)
Article 9 (CTE Fund Balance) Passed: 4,103 (yes) - 1,559 (no)
Also, Christine Gaynor-Patterson (City of Essex Junction), Gretchen Bates (Town of Essex), and Anne Marie Sharp (Westford) were elected to the EWSD Board.
Hello EWSD Community,
I first want to sincerely thank our community for exercising their right to vote in the school budget vote this past Tuesday. As an elected board, we respect the will of our community in choosing not to uphold the initial EWSD budget brought forth. Now, our board is focused on bringing a revised budget forward over the next few weeks. We also want to thank you for your support in voting for the Center for Technology, Essex budget.
This has been an unprecedented year of state legislative action drastically impacting our community. We remain committed to partnering with you in tackling the challenging conversations as we look to how to balance the needs of our schools and community. Know that as a board we will also be continuing to advocate for structural change at the state level to create sustainability in educational funding.
Moving forward to the next steps: we will be meeting tomorrow April 11th to plan our path to a new proposed budget. If you have not already done so, please take the very brief exit poll from the vote as this will greatly inform our work.
Thank you to all of you who continue to engage in this process, we are truly in this together. I am grateful for your community engagement and feedback. We rely on your collaboration in building the future of our district and students and remain committed to this critical work. We will be following up with timely updates as we work through this process.
Sincerely,
Robert Carpenter
EWSD Board Chair
Additional Information:
The EWSD School Board will be meeting on Thursday, April 11 at 6:30 p.m. at the Essex Police Department to consider the next steps in bringing a budget back to the voters soon. To give your input, please take this short, two-question anonymous exit survey about how you voted and why.
To stay up to date on the upcoming revote and revised budget proposal as it is developed, visit our EWSD budget web page for the latest information.