by Rob Roper

The so-described education reform law, Act 73, is in effect. Its first order of business, creating a Vermont Redistricting Task Force, is done, and now said Task Force is getting down to its task of drawing up at least three maps of new mega-school districts for the legislature to consider next year, scrapping our current system along with all of our local school boards.

According to Act 73, these new mega-districts must contain somewhere between 4000 and 8000 Pre-K-12 students. Splitting the difference at 6000, that would mean Vermont would have just fourteen school districts in 2028. And we good citizens will be charged with electing boards to govern these districts. This move from local to regional control is supposed to be more streamlined and efficient. But let’s think about this…

There are thirty Vermont state senators, each of whom represents about 22,000 people. So, we can rough-math out that each of these fourteen school districts will have more than twice than that number, let’s say 45,000 to keep things round. Do you know how much it costs to run a campaign for public office in a district with 45,000 people? In 2024, senate candidates in competitive races had to raise over $40,000, and some as over $75,000 to reach their voters.

This is a far cry from current school board races that involve little more than a Facebook post announcement and a bunch of endorsements from friends and family on Front Porch Forum, and maybe a flyer dropped in a mailbox. That’s all you need because everybody knows the candidates from around town. Under mega-districts, voters for the most part will not know who they are voting for anymore. Certainly not all of the candidates appearing on the ticket.

Also worth comparing, the senate races of this size pit two candidates from one political party against a the same from another with sometimes a Progressive or independent thrown in. How many mega-school board seats will we have to vote to fill? Ten? Twelve? We finally got rid of the Chittenden County senate “six pack” because it was absurdly confusing to choose between sometimes eighteen or so candidates with instructions to vote for no more than six. Imagine thirty candidates running for twelve school board seats across a geographical playing field the size of Addison County Senate District. Chaos.

Now, we don’t yet know how these elections will work so don’t take that scenario above to the bank. Act 73 mentions an intent to create “wards” within each mega-district, though it doesn’t define how many or how populated. So, perhaps voters will just elect someone from their “ward” to go onto the school board, in which case voters won’t have any campaign contact with school board members governing their kids’ school who aren’t from their ward, nor would the the school board members outside of one’s voting ward have any incentive to respond to someone who can’t vote for them. So much for transparency and accountability. (But we only have time to go down the rabbit hole of potential unintended consequences so far.)

Suffice to say if this scheme goes into effect, school board elections will be much more expensive, and the candidates further removed from the people who elect them, and (I’m willing to bet) exceptionally complicated from a voter’s perspective. The campaigns will by necessity become more professional and, likely, more politically partisan.

Which gets me back to the question I asked earlier about who will step in to help mega-school board candidates with the new levels of funding and logistics necessary to win these races? Parties for sure. But last month Vermont Business Magazine ran a story titled, Vermont NEA Wants to Get More Educators into Politics. Yeah, I bet they do! The subhead reads, “Union says it’s essential to boost the ranks of educators in legislature, city councils, and school boards.” [emphasis added] The story explains,

The Vermont-NEA Educator Candidate School will launch in the fall. Its aim is to train and support educators on important skills necessary to successfully run for office at the local and state level in Vermont.

It’s not enough that the Teachers’ Union has outsized influence in Montpelier through its lobbying power. Now they want to BE the lawmakers, not just exercise control over the ones who are there. And this mega-district scheme is a perfect opportunity for them to take control of the new system right off the bat. While the local candidates are making their Facebook posts and asking their neighbors to write a letter to the editor, the most powerful special interest group in the state will be raising money, recruiting volunteers from its taxpayer funded ranks, and providing professional campaign management and logistics for its professionally training candidates – who, by the way, will not actually be representing the voters who fall for voting for them.

So, if you think this “reform” effort is going to lead to reduced spending and lower property taxes at any point in the future, good luck!

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com