$15K per-pupil spending part of bill going to full Legislature Monday
By Guy Page
The House and Senate conference committee agreed Friday on a bill to restructure Vermont’s public school education and governance.
This draft will now go before the Legislature Monday, June 16. At his press conference Friday afternoon at 3 PM – delayed from noon while lawmakers finalized the deal – Gov. Phil Scott also low-key backed the latest draft, saying it probably won’t satisfy all lawmakers of all parties, but also saying it should result in savings of school spending.
The final draft, posted at 2:07 PM Friday on the Legislative website, includes these key agreements:
New, larger school district boundaries will be set July 1, 2026, take effect July 1 2028. Transition details include:
- A School District Redistricting Task Force is established to propose up to three options for these new boundaries by December 1, 2025. These proposed districts are expected to have an average daily membership of approximately 4,000 to 8,000 preK-12 students.
- A School District Voting Ward Working Group will create voting wards within the new school districts to ensure substantially equal weighting of votes for school board members.
- The first school board member elections within these newly created districts are scheduled for a special election in November 2027. The General Assembly intends for the new, larger school districts to assume responsibility for the education of all resident students on July 1, 2028.
Independent schools will be eligible for public school tuition, subject to a lengthy list of eligibility guidelines.
New average class size minimums will be 10 students for first grade, 12 for grades 2-5, 15 for grades 6-8 in required content areas, and 18 for grades 9-12 in required content areas.
Education spending: the “base amount” for the per-pupil foundation formula is set at $15,033, to be adjusted for inflation annually. That figure matches the higher House proposal over lower figures proposed by the Senate and Gov. Scott. It is not clear whether the new proposed per-pupil spending will keep property taxes flat, or even at a reduced rate, when it takes effect.