Days after North Bennington voters agreed to close their public school and establish an independent school in its place, a petition is circulating to recall the vote.

The bid to close the North Bennington Graded School won by a much smaller margin than last March, when voters agreed to close the school by July of this year.

School consolidation is a growing concern for a number of Vermont communities, and that's the case in Bennington where voters will head to the polls next month to decide the fate of one public school.

Lawmakers hope a new approach to getting more Vermont school districts to merge will help augment an earlier effort to cut down on the number of school boards. Education officials argue mergers would result in better governance, more student opportunity and possible cost savings.

Legislative efforts to encourage school mergers have met with limited success, so this year lawmakers are offering districts a new option. 

North Bennington residents voted last March to close their public elementary school. They hoped an application for a new independent school would be approved by the state Board of Education at its May meeting. But instead the application was tabled.

Town Meeting Day voters in North Bennington will decide whether to give their school board permission to close the village's graded school.

Officials in Hartford have ended a long debate about whether to save money by consolidating its three elementary schools and have instead decided to go after new revenue by attracting tuition-paying students to the high school.

Residents of Wilmington and Whitingham voted yesterday to consolidate their elementary schools. The two southern Vermont towns, a dozen miles apart, merged their middle and high schools in 2003 and formed the Twin Valley School District.

School leaders around Vermont are being encouraged under a new voluntary merger law to study forming larger, unified school districts that could save money and offer more opportunities for students.

Officials say it's necessary to close a school because the savings could pay for much-needed renovations to the remaining two school buildings. Wilmington and Whitingham have repeatedly voted 'no' on financing the repairs through taxes.

Voters in five northern Vermont towns are saying no to a plan to merge school districts and have one school board oversee nine schools.

Residents in five Vermont towns will go to the polls Tuesday to vote on a plan that would merge seven school districts, forming a single, regional district with one board. Supporters say it will cut costs and improve public education. Opponents say it will strip them of any authority local communities still have over their schools.

Voters in five Chittenden county towns will decide tomorrow on a plan to merge seven school districts, dissolve eight school boards and put nine schools under the authority of one new 15-member board.

Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca worries petitions in Addison and Vergennes to stop a school merger will stall other districts considering school board consolidations.

Voters in the city of Vergennes overturned a Town Meeting Day decision to form a unified union school district. The five towns of the Addison Northwest Supervisory Union have tried three times to form a unified union, which would allow the union's four schools to be governed by one school board instead of five under the current system.

For the second consecutive year, the five towns of the Addison Northwest Supervisory Union have voted to form one unified school district. The vote passed along a similar margin in 2010, but opponents in the town of Addison were able to overturn the results in a re-vote.

Hard economic times, shrinking student populations and rising costs have put pressure on school districts to merge and consolidate. Only one district actually has merger on the ballot. But the prospect of restructuring education will be a topic of discussion at many town meetings.

Vermont school districts which fell short of state budget goals earned a temporary reprieve this week.  But officials warn they'll still have to trim expenses in future budgets.

After merging their middle schools and high schools six years ago, the towns of Wilmington and Whitingham may now be forced to take a step further and eliminate a school building.

A lot of opposition has developed to requiring school districts to consolidate.

The Republican leader of the Vermont House wants to consolidate the number of schools in the state. Speaking on VPR's Vermont Edition, Dorset Representative Patti Komline said it's difficult to decide which schools should close.

Vermont's education commissioner says a bill that would consolidate services and courses of study in each supervisory union is a step toward reducing costs and greater efficiency in the state's public schools.

We discuss the pros, cons, and practicalities of school district consolidation. The Norwich University athletics director previews this weekend's NCAA hockey tournament. VPR's John Dillon expains the new power deal with Hydro-Quebec. 

We talk to Martha Allen, the newly elected president of the VT-NEA, about the teachers' perspective on school funding and budget cuts. Also, Vermont Law School delegates in Copenhagen report back on the climate change conference. And, how to make igloos.