We, the undersigned parents of children who are attending or have attended OSSD district schools and community members who share similar concerns, have composed this letter to express our dissatisfaction with the current superintendent, Layne Millington.

Mr. Millington’s contract comes up for renewal this year and we are asking the school board not renew his contract for the following reasons:

The OSSD district has always been proud of its sense of community, team work and collaboration. In recent years under the leadership of Mr. Millington our districts community has crumbled and the parents, teachers, staff and community have lost trust in Mr. Millington. This lack of community has caused our district to be unable to healthily navigate challenging and sometimes controversial issues in a productive manner.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Mr. Millington failed to create an environment where our teachers and staff felt safe and supported coming to school. Mr. Millington pushed the school board to give him control over in person learning decisions but then Mr. Millington sent out lengthy emails placing blame on families, staff and the teacher’s union for not following protocol or not being willing to work. Mr. Millington created an environment that pinned teachers and families against one another and took no accountability for his role. Unlike many other districts around us we lost valuable learning time for our students due to his inability to create an environment where everyone felt safe. When Mr. Millington was asked after the pandemic to evaluate our districts response to the pandemic and determine what we can do differently to avoid future challenges – his response was; he thought he and the district did fine and those asking for an evaluation and a new plan should stop complaining.

It has been well known in our district that the boiler system at the high school has been in need of attention for years. Mr. Millington has continued to ask the community members to vote a large surplus of money into the maintenance budget year after year. He chose to not address the boiler issue during the summer for the last several years. Had Mr. Millington addressed the boiler issue in a timely manner we would not have been forced to close the high school for two weeks – creating a scheduling nightmare for teachers/staff, students and parents. Additionally the amount of money spent to fix the issue  would have been substantially less if repairs did not have to be done in winter and alternate heating solutions found. This oversight put students and staff/teachers at a greater risk during the winter season as Mr. Millington neglected to close school on several days with poor travel including a day without power at two of our schools due to the fact that we are out of make up days. There were known motor vehicle accidents on these days of both staff and parents due to poor road conditions. These issues were all the result of poor management of our districts funds while letting a known maintenance issue go unaddressed.

We have seen controversy within our district over the last several years surrounding our mascot, Black Lives Matter flags and transgender equality. Mr. Millington’s handling and communication around these manners has been negative, places blame and sometimes goes as far as calling names to those who fall on one side of an issue. He pushes community members to push back against other community members inciting more drama and strain as opposed to suggesting or providing conflict resolution. While these are not easy issues to navigate it is the responsibility of the district leader to be sure that all parties feel heard and supported and to demonstrate professional communication and respect for all involved.

Mr. Millington is interested in bringing back mandatory homework and detention for schools based off a Harvard study.  There is large amount of research, along with teacher/staff experience that suggest these are not the right approaches for our community. During recent discussions he has been resistant to hearing from teachers, staff, and parents with lots of education experience as to why this is not the right fit for our district. Many other superintendents in VT districts have decreased or eliminated homework and continue to find that to be a more beneficial approach. In order for homework to be effective at home students need a strong support system and those who usually struggle with homework are the ones who don’t have that. Punishing them further with such things as weekend detention does a bigger disservice and only puts a bigger learning gap between students and an added burden on families at home.

Mr. Millington is disconnected from both the classrooms and the community. Mr. Millington does not regularly visit the 5 schools within the district. He does not regularly attend scheduled staff meetings or staff events. He does not attend school based or community events outside of the forum meetings he holds. In a small community these are the places that you will regularly get to interact with students, parents, staff/teachers and community members to learn about their goals and to create a sense of community and collaboration. In November of 2022 there was a mandatory all staff meeting with a professional to work on getting to the bottom of some of the bigger issues within the school this fall. Mr. Millington was noticeably absent for this meeting as he is at most all staff meetings and events.

Mr. Millington is not a collaborator or a team player when it comes to decisions about the district. He has an agenda of his own based around budget and test scores. He makes quick decision and does not like these decisions to be questioned. He becomes aggressive and argumentative when he is questioned and if he doesn’t agree with your view he pushes to hush your ideas and move on. Having a strong budget means nothing if you are forgoing basic repairs that need to be done to keep the current facility we have functioning. Test scores mean nothing if your community is divided, you are losing students to outside school districts and you are lacking the leadership necessary to run effective schools.

It is clear that our middle and high schools in particular are struggling. We have a lot of new staff, a lot of staff turnover, a lot of students leaving our district and teachers who are fearful of retaliation and loss of a job if they speak their minds or even sign these petitions.  Without strong leadership from the top down we are not going to be able to make progress in fixing the underlying issues creating these problems. While our community and school administrators also have a lot of work to do to improve our district it has become clear to us that these changes cannot be achieved with Mr. Millington as our leader. We ask the school board to start the search process for candidates for a Superintendent who better aligns with our districts goals and who can promote an open, inviting and professional approach to our districts issues and help create a strong learning community that is supportive of all students.