A vote by citizens of Hanover and Norwich, Vt., affirmed on Tuesday that Hanover High School was correct in allowing the police to investigate and criminally prosecute students involved in the cheating scandal last June.
According to the Valley News, the vote was 1137 to 875 in favor of the article, with 19 percent of Dresden school district citizens voting.
Norwich resident George Fraser filed this question as an advisory article in the Dresden warrant, part of the area's budget, last Thursday. Fraser, who contends that the high school administration violated school board policy by allowing the police to investigate, advocated a vote against the administration's decision.
"They said they didn't have a choice and clearly they did," Fraser said. "The administration made a choice and what I consider to be a very bad choice."
Fraser, who owns Dan and Whit's General Store in Norwich, has employed several of the accused students.
Teachers' support of the high school administrators, expressed in newspaper ads and town meetings last week, may have swayed the vote, according to Fraser.
"They put a large ad in the paper," Fraser said. "As I understand it, they stood outside of polling places and encouraged people to vote yes, which is their right I guess."
Fraser is unsure whether he will continue to pursue the matter, he said.
According to Dresden School Board member Geoffrey Vitt, the vote was not a show of confidence for the actions taken by the school, citing that around 40 percent of voters did not agree with how the school handled the situation.
"You've got a significant chunk of the community that is still quite upset with this situation," Vitt said. "I would say that the Board and the school have a considerable amount of work to do to work though this."
Vitt added that he did not believe the article was a great way of measuring public opinion on the topic, as it was too blunt a question considering the nuances of the situation.
Voters also voted yes on a second article, which was filed by Upper Valley residents in response to Fraser's article. The article stated that the high school is bound to follow the law even when doing so is "politically unpopular."
Hilary Pridgen, one of the locals who filed the second article, said that the yes votes on both articles were an endorsement of the high school administration.
"The votes are affirming support for the administration for following the correct procedures," she said. "They have to follow the law and people agree."
Pridgen acknowledged that the vote was unlikely to end people's questioning of whether the school should have allowed the police to investigate.
"It won't stop people from being unhappy. The situation stinks," Pridgen said. "But there are laws and procedures society must follow."
While 56 percent of Norwich citizens voted, only 8 percent of Hanover residents did, the Valley News reported. This may have been because Norwich voters were also voting in the Vermont presidential primary, Pridgen said. She added that the higher turnout in Norwich might have been because Fraser and many of the students charged in the case reside there.
Yesterday also saw the election of six new members to the 12-person Dresden School Board. The board is currently in the process of updating the Hanover High School honor code, a process that should take around six weeks, Vitt said. After the updates, the school and the surrounding community need to have a discussion about the proper role of the police at the school, he said.
"We have to put together a solid protocol so that the next time the issue comes up there are polices in place so people know what to do," Vitt said, adding that the school "would be lucky" to have these policies in place in 6 months.
The scandal started last June when a number of Hanover High students allegedly stole math and chemistry exams after school hours. Ten students have been charged in connection with the crime, and four students have had their cases resolved.
