DRESDEN SCHOOL DISTRICT

Alumni of the College who may be unaware that for several years in the late 1770's and early 1780's Alma Mater was in a sense not in Hanover Village at all but in Dresden, will be interested to learn that the old name is being revived in what appears to be the first full-fledged, inter-state school district in the United States.

In the Dresden period, which included the move for a separate valley state to be called New Connecticut, towns on both sides of the Connecticut River, including Hanover and Norwich, were involved in the agitation and it was this historical reference which suggested the revival of the name Dresden.

The present plan is being implemented under an agreement between the towns of Hanover, N. H., and Norwich, Vt., for the establishment and maintenance of a joint school at junior-high and senior-high levels and for its administration by a joint school board for what is to be named the Dresden School District. Such a step could be taken only after authorization by the legislatures of both states and supporting legislation by the Congress of the United States and the signature of the late President Kennedy. Progress was very slow but this at long last was achieved early in November 1963.

For many years Norwich, with no high school, has paid tuition for Norwich boys and girls to attend an outside secondary school. A very few have elected to attend schools in distant towns, a few more have attended Thetford Academy, in the northerly adjacent town of Thetford, Vt., and a few also have elected the high school in Hartford, Vt., to the south a community known to most of you by its chief village of White River Junction. By far the greater number, however, have elected to attend the high school across the river in Hanover which for most families is considerably nearer and generally regarded as superior.

With the growth of Norwich as a bedroom town for Hanover, and the population explosion, along with increasing costs of education, the cost to the town of Norwich (this year at Hanover High $722 each for about 90 pupils or close to $65,000) aroused the interest and concern of the citizens. Special meetings were held and several possibilities for Norwich were discussed: the establishment of a high school in Norwich; affiliation with neighboring Hartford or Thetford; or some sort of a joint arrangement with Hanover by which Norwich might share in the administration of a school to which it was already making so large a financial contribution.

The Norwich and Hanover School Boards, after full and long consultation, came up with the unique suggestion of a new combined school district at high and junior-high levels with a separate school board upon which both towns would be represented and with costs distributed on a proper proportioned basis. Special public meetings were called on both sides of the river to discuss the plan and on the Hanover side at a relatively small meeting on May 22, 1963 this proposal was approved by a vote of 142 to 13. The good Vermonters in Norwich were more suspicious, particularly concerning the evaluation procedure in connection with the provision that Norwich buy into the present Hanover School plant. At a meeting in Norwich on June 10, 1963 the vote was 315 for and 176 against which was 13 votes short of the "two-thirds of those present and voting" as required by the special Vermont statute.

Further discussion meetings were held and some sparks were struck between town and gown though it is only fair to say that there was no sharp division along these lines. Some townsfolk did point out that Norwich was proposing to buy into one of the most expensive public school systems in the North Country where "every fad and every latest wrinkle" had to be included in the curriculum. But finally at a meeting on June 25 the necessary two-thirds affirmative vote was achieved, 459 to 206. While the Hanover meeting had been an exceptionally small one, this Norwich meeting was probably the largest voting meeting ever held in the town, and reflected the deep concern which the problem stimulated in these good Vermonters in Norwich.

Professor W. W. Ballard '28 of the Norwich School Board has investigated the uniqueness of the arrangement and reports that two other attempts at similar inter-state school districts have been made in the United States but that neither was carried through. One of these was in the Southwest, involving New Mexico and Texas, and the other in the Upper Mississippi Valley, involving towns in Wisconsin and Illinois. He also reports a very unique situation in College Corner, a town which straddles the Ohio-Indiana state line, where some sort of an inter-state arrangement has been in effect since 1893. At College Corner, however, the school building itself sits on the state line and has twin doors, one in each state. It is not run by a union district nor is an inter-state compact involved. The two school boards have resolved themselves into a joint board, for practical purposes, but each keeps its own records and each board presents its own budget. This seems to leave our new Dresden School District in the unique position of a first, and it may be that in these days of a tendency toward school consolidation this union will prove a pilot move for other communities similarly located adjacent to state lines.

The great majority of both communities, both town and gown, seem reasonably well satisfied that the move is a good one. At least most are optimistic but an old Vermont farmer when asked how he thought it would work out made the cautious reply, "It's too early to tell." And I suppose he is quite correct!

P. S. We get a variety of interesting letters from our readers and appreciate them all, but one with reference to "Hanover Characters—1963" deserves mention here. Hermon W. Farwell '02 of Noroton, Conn., writes to remind us that: we ourselves grow into "characters" - and probably some of us do. He tells the story of the Vermonter who returned home to visit old scenes and friends and suddenly burst out, "Say, John, what ever became of all those queer old characters we used to see?" To which query John replied, "Sam we now are those queer old characters."

A. R. F.