By Michael Bielawski
The Vermont Education Secretary Zoie Saunders spoke to the Senate Education Committee this week about how their work is going on education reform, including concerns about discrepancy in teacher salaries and her response to critiques of the Administration’s five district proposal.
“We saw there was really great discrepancy in terms of teacher pay. Another emphasis of our work is thinking about how we can promote teacher pay equity,” Saunders said.
Saunders said the administration is looking into class size minimums. She suggested if teachers are to be expected to take on larger class sizes, so they should make sure they are compensated accordingly.
“We do have one of the highest one of the lowest teacher to student ratios,” she said. “We also have a number of teachers on provisional licenses. We have a lot of turnover. So part of the strategy is also, you know, I think a teacher may be willing to save on a few more students if they’re also able to be compensated at a higher level.”
She emphasized that Vermont’s education challenges including rising costs and dropping performance are not for a lack of effort by teachers.
“We have really dedicated educators who are working hard and are doing amazing things for our students,” she said. “When we are talking about the challenges, we are talking about the systemic and structural challenges.”
A multi-year ramp
Saunders acknowledged that it’s going to take time in order to get the transformation going. This includes consolidation of governance structures including a reduction of school districts from 115 to 5 regions and a block-grant funding formula per student.
“This is a multiyear approach, and recognizing that it takes time to make this type of change, but there is a sense of urgency and being able to start that work,” Saunders said. “…We’ve built in those adjustments assuming that it’s two years before we would transition to a new governance model and funding formula and that when we do in that fiscal year twenty eight we’re assuming that we’re having the same number of schools and that there’s additional cost in maintaining those schools in the first year.”
Regarding a timeline, she said one big target would be to have a school board vote in November 2026, which would allow for school boards to elect superintendents which would be “giving that ramp to move into the new regions.”
She said for this legislative session, a foundation funding formula and governance structure should really get done this year. The governor also would like to see things get done.
“I also want to be upfront with legislators, I will not support adjourning this session without a bill to transition to a new funding system, establish a new governance structure that unlocks transformation, and includes a specific implementation timeline” he recently wrote.
Five districts
The proposal to have only five school districts for the whole state has proven controversial for critics of the Administration’s proposals. Saunders said more than five could be OK but only if all the impacts on cost and education quality are considered.
“We can have more than five districts but we need to make sure that we are really clear around what we’re trying to accomplish and any different configuration will have impacts on costs and it will have an impact on the operational considerations that are important for us to take into account,” she said.
She suggested that by consolidating districts to five would eliminate administrative overhead, enable teachers to be paid more, and make for redundancy in services so that when there’s turnover at a critical position nothing gets disrupted.
“In that modeling you will see there’s potential for pay raises from $5,000 up to $20,000 for teachers across the state,” she said.
She also noted that the current ratio of districts to students is off-base with the national average.
“I think we have one school board for seventy five students, which is quite an anomaly when you think about school board government structures in other parts of the country,” she wrote. “I think it makes it challenging to think about the broader needs of the region of students. It makes it challenging to, you know, manage some of the declining development challenges that we’re facing in a way that is strategic and maximizing resources.”
Contact your legislators
See all bills assigned to this committee here. Constituents may contact committee members (click link on name for bio, party affiliation, etc.) with comments, questions, and information at the following email addresses:
House Education
Peter Conlon, Cornwall, Chair, pconlon@leg.state.vt.us
Chris Taylor, Madison, Vice Chair, cataylor@leg.state.vt.us
Erin Brady, Chittenden District 2, Ranking Member, ebrady@leg.state.vt.us
Jana Brown, Richmond, Clerk, jbrown@leg.state.vt.us
Joshua Dobrovich, Orange-3, jdobrovich@leg.state.vt.us
Leanne Harple, Orleans 4, lharple@leg.state.vt.us
Robert Hunter, Bennington-4, rhunter@leg.state.vt.us
Emily Long, Burlington, elong@leg.state.vt.us
Kate McCann, Washington-4, kmccann@leg.state.vt.us
Beth Quimby, Caledonia-3, bquimby@leg.state.vt.us
Casey Toof, St. Albans City, ctoof@leg.state.vt.us
Senate Education
Seth Bongartz, Manchester, Chair, sbongartz@leg.state.vt.us
David Weeks, Proctor, Vice Chair, dweeks@leg.state.vt.us
Kesha Ram Hinsdale, Montpelier, kraminsdale@leg.state.vt.us
Nader Hashim, Windham, nhashim@leg.state.vt.us
Terry Williams, Rutland, Clerk, tkwilliams@leg.state.vt.us
Steven Heffernan, Addison, sheffernan@leg.state.vt.us
All committee transcripts are available at www.goldendomevt.com. Committee meeting video available at the committee’s YouTube channel. The committee meets in the morning in Room 8.
The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle