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by Don Keelan
Arlington Memorial High School in Arlington, Vermont, has existed since 1922. It now faces a huge potential problem: what to do with its display of 22 banners and 203 trophies and plaques? These were presented to the School’s athletic teams for winning State championships in basketball, soccer, track and field, snowboarding, baseball, and softball.
This problem arises because of what is being debated in Montpelier: how does the State control education spending? By addressing this topic, the closing of many elementary and secondary schools, school districts, and supervisory unions will be debated.
The Administration and the Legislature knew this sensitive topic had to be addressed once this year’s legislative session convened in January. Kicking the proverbial can down the road had come to an end. Most agreed there was no more road. Education spending was at a breaking point for many Vermont real estate taxpayers.
The Administration’s 176-page proposal addressing the problem is seismic: close all supervisory unions and 119 school districts. In its place, five geographic school districts will be created. Remove the right of a local district to close its school by moving such authority to the proposed arrangement.
The plan would also create local advisory boards to present their concerns to one of the proposed five districts.
The Legislature has its version of cost containment. One aspect is to eliminate any high school with less than 600 students and merge it with a neighboring high school. Its proposal would also make state funds no longer available to many of the state’s private schools, especially if public schools are nearby.
What does this mean for the ASD?
The district’s annual report for town meeting reported the following:
Grade Students
9th 23
10th 25
11th 34
12th 28
Total 110
110 make up approximately 28% of the district’s total student population of 398, including 43 Pre-K students. The Pre-K headcount was non-existent 25 years ago. However, what is noted above is no longer the way by which a school’s population is determined. Currently, there is the “weighted number of students.” According to an ASD official, the district’s population increases geometrically for State education funding purposes.
We cannot go back and change what allowed Vermont to reach this agonizing period of uncertainty for students, parents, school staff, faculty, and the greater community. However, it might be worthwhile to do so.
Vermont has lost over 30,000 students since ACT 60 was adopted in the 1990s. Year after year, the State loses more and more of its younger population to out-migration. The State lacks housing, and what is available is no longer affordable.
Another major factor, and one not discussed, is how the State’s financial resources were, over time, moved to fund numerous social programs and away from funding education and the infrastructure required to build market-rate housing.
The funding crisis is now at our door. The solutions, whatever they might come to be, will be messy, chaotic, and upsetting to many. For so many Vermont towns and villages, the local school represents the heart and soul of the community; it is the social and cultural center and the basis for a town’s economic well-being.
Over the last several decades, attention has been paid to all that makes Vermont beautiful, especially for its visitors, at the state level. Also, a transforming event has occurred in our school. They no longer just educated our children; they also took on a new role of raising them.
On a local level, twenty-five years ago, Arlington was aware of the potential loss of half its student population. Young families could not live here, and there was little housing, partly because of a lack of wastewater infrastructure. And what housing was available was unaffordable.
The AMHS will not soon close. On March 20, 2025, the Legislature extended the proverbial road; the closing issue will be assigned to committees for further study. The banners and trophies can stay where they are. For now.
The author is a U.S. Marine (retired), CPA, and columnist living in Arlington, VT.
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Categories: Commentary, Education, State Government
Stop making Vermont so expensive to live in, bring in some real opportunities and maybe young people will stay. The current agenda isn’t working.
thank goodness it is not on the chopping block…
The legislature has failed to consider all options such as school choice and privatization of education, and will only consider school consolidation, which is going to be unpopular with EVERYONE, and an epic failure for all students. We need a constitutional amendment to strike legislative authority to regulate education under Chapter 2, section 68 of the Vermont Constitution and get back to local control. Set a flat amount per pupil and send it to the parents. Let parents choose a private or locally controlled school, or maybe families will be able to afford having one parent stay home and school their own children. Special needs and ESL students will be better served, at less expense, in the private education sector, in which IEP students cannot be bloated to receive additional state funds. There are state laws for compulsory school attendance, there are no laws regarding proficiency. Privatizing schools would create a competitive market in which producing students with proficiency in academics would be necessary for a private school to survive – which is why private schools are currently thriving, especially religious schools: they provide higher quality of education without indoctrination. Also we can shorten the legislative session and save money by ending the legislature’s regulation of education and health care: they have failed miserably at both and it is only getting worse and more expensive.
The majority of the school’s budget is spent on salaries that really haven’t changed that much except for the rapidly increasing health care costs. Compacting districts to 10-24 (rather than 5 proposed by the Zoie and Gov. Scott) could make sense if there is a sure way of holding on to local control. On paper it would reduce the number of pricey superintendent salaries and other executive positions. It can be done – Hawaii and Puerto Rico both have only 1 district. A former board member cautioned – they say reducing the number of districts will reduce costs, but it doesn’t. They hang on to funds and allocate it elsewhere.
Another way to reduce costs is to increase classroom sizes and the number of para educators. That runs contrary to the way it has always been done in Vermont. I’ve taught in other states and another country. All had much higher classroom sizes and virtually, no paraeducators. It is much cheaper, but much less friendly. Vermont schools are by far the friendliest schools to teach in, but that added expense doesn’t really equate to higher performance scores.
There’s going to be some tough decisions to make. I will squarely put my foot down to say hold on to local control. It’s your community. It’s your children. It’s your decisions that need to be made to determine your community’s next steps for your schools.
Re: “Another major factor, and one not discussed, is how the State’s financial resources were, over time, moved to fund numerous social programs and away from funding education and the infrastructure required to build market-rate housing.”
Correction, Mr. Keelan: Vermont’s financial resources have never been moved away from funding education. Vermont’s single largest expense is its public K thru 12th grade education program. No other expense comes close to this $2.7 Billion government centralized annual behemoth ($30,000 per student). If anything, that financial resources were so consumed by the failed public education system, the private sector that drives any healthy economy, suffered.
Housing and social services costs have not been managed properly either. Vermont spends more per capita on the homeless and, lo and behold (See Rob Roper’s recent analysis) now has nearly the highest rate of homelessness per capita in the country. This is not to mention a doubling of young adult drug overdoses and suicides over the last ten years.
No, Mr. Keelan, the problem isn’t funding. The problem is with the people in government, and its subsidized NGO non-profit organizations, who think they know better how to manage our society than we individuals do.
By the way, all of those banners and trophies in the Arlington Memorial High School are now nothing more than a testament to Vermont’s legislative short-sightedness. After all, everyone gets a trophy these days. Right?
Among all the discussion on this topic I don’t recall seeing any mention of a study or consideration of where each set of students being moved will be moved to. Is this something that will have to be determined after a decision is made to make the move? Will any new construction be necessary in some areas to accommodate the new students? How will it be determined which teachers will be transferred and how many will be required? How many teachers will lose their positions? Has any state undergone a similar shift and what was its experience?