By Guy Page
A bill meant to prevent public tuition going to religious schools also would stop state education funding for many small, secular private schools, the Caledonian-Record reports.
Both the East Burke School – a small local private high school now supported by public school tuition – and the K-8 independent Thaddeus Stevens School in East Burke would suffer significant financial losses if the law passes as introduced Feb. 7.
S66 redefines independent school eligibility for tuition funding, in an apparent work-around of the U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring towns without high schools pay tuition without discriminating against religious schools. The bill doesn’t reference religion or hot-button social issues, but instead requires independent schools “eligible for designation” meet at least three of the four requirements:
- The recognized independent school serves as a regional CTE center [tech school] as defined in section 1522 of this title.
- The recognized independent school was established through the granting of a charter by the Vermont General Assembly.
- The recognized independent school qualified as a public school under the definition of “public school” in effect on June 30, 1991.
- The recognized independent school is designated under state law as an employer of teachers as defined by law covering the State Teachers’ Retirement System of Vermont.
“Tuition to local independent high schools Lyndon Institute and St. Johnsbury Academy may be safe based on the criteria,” longtime editor Dana Gray writes in the February 9 online edition of the daily newspaper for the Northeast Kingdom and northwestern counties in New Hampshire. “The same cannot be said for other local independent schools.”
“Our school doesn’t meet any of those. I don’t know any of the small independents that do,” Thaddeus Stevens School Director Julie Hansen told the CR. For example, many small private schools don’t require teacher certification – a condition under the fourth criteria. Also, few private schools were “established through the granting of a charter by the Vermont General Assembly.”
At present, school districts that lack their own high schools may now, at the parents’ request, tuition students to parochial and other religious schools. This recent development followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision of Carson V. Makin and a subsequent legal settlement with the State of Vermont, negotiated on behalf of parents by the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court decision, the tuition program was available to districts without a public high school, helping high schoolers to attend a private school – a secular one – of their choice. High school students in Maine fell under a similar program that was also excluding religious schools until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Makin that the state was unlawfully discriminating against them.
S66 is in the Senate Education Committee. It is not on the committee agenda for discussion this week.