PRESS RELEASE
March 7, 2025
The Windham Southeast School District announces that a recount has been requested in the election results for the three-year Guilford seat on the WSESD Board of Directors. Candidates were Jocelyn Fritts, having received 1128 votes and Kelly Young, having received 1100 votes.
The total vote tallies are reported in a “commingled” manner, as per 16 V.S.A. § 741(3). “The articles of agreement as initially approved by the voters on or before July 1, 2019 explicitly provide that the board of civil authority of each town within the unified union school district shall count Australian ballots cast in that town and report that town’s results to the district clerk, who shall calculate total votes cast within the unified union school district and report the result of the vote to the public.”
As a unified union school district, what counts is the total number of votes cast by voters from all four of the member towns. As a unified union school district, the 10 person Board includes 4 seats that must be filled by residents of Brattleboro and 2 seats that must be filled by residents of each of the other three towns: Dummerston, Guilford and Putney. Meanwhile, voters from all four towns vote to elect candidates of all towns. Each director serves for a three-year term; terms are staggered so as to prevent any town from having to seat all candidates from their town at once.
The current WSESD Board is comprised of: Brattleboro: Timothy Maciel (through 2027), Kimberly Price (through 2026), Matthew Schibley (through 2028), and Colleen Savage (through 2027); Dummerston: Deborah Stanford (through 2028) and Jessica Everlith (through 2027); Putney: Anne Beekman (through 2027) and Ruby McAdoo (through 2026); Guilford: Brian Remer (through 2027) and Jocelyn Fritts (through 2028).
Should the recent recount request result in the other candidate’s favor, the Guilford seat that expires in 2028, currently occupied by Jocelyn Fritts, would be replaced with Kelly Young for the same time period.
It is anticipated that the recount for the Guilford three-year seat will take place in each of the four towns on Tuesday, March 11th. Results of the recount will be sent to the press, and posted online at wsesu.org/wsesd-board .
