NEK Choice School District

On March 7, 2017, Maidstone voters approved the merging of the Maidstone School District with nine other school districts in Essex County to form a new union school district, the Northeast Kingdom Choice School District, now known as the NEK Choice School District. The ten towns that voted in 2017 to merge their school districts and create the NEK Choice School District were East Haven, Granby, Guildhall, Kirby, Maidstone, Victory, Bloomfield, Brunswick, Lemington, and Norton.

The new NEK Choice School District was formed in response to Vermont Act 46 that was passed in 2015, “aimed at sizing school districts into larger systems with like governance structures to be more cost-effective and to provide more educational opportunities to students,” according to the Caledonian Record article entitled State Ed Board Approves NEK Choice School District, published on January 19, 2017. The Chair of the NEK Choice School Board, in his School District Summary that appeared in Maidstone’s Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 2017, wrote that the voters who approved merging to form the new district were “determined to merge their belief and commitment that school choice offered their children the best opportunities for educational development, by forming the Northeast Kingdom Choice School District (NEK). NEK Choice will continue to support tuitioning students with the belief that the ability of parents to choose the educational settings that best fit their child’s need will lead to the best outcomes for these students.”

In response to the request of the new School District Board, the State assigned the new District to the Essex North Supervisory Union (ENSU). ENSU is comprised of the NEK Choice School District and the Canaan School District.