By Guy Page
A proposed amendment to Act 73, Vermont’s sweeping education reform law, would create a single, unified statewide school district in which parents to allocate tuition dollars to any public school.
Sponsor Steve Heffernan (R-Addison) ran through the bill, which is scheduled for introduction, Wednesday afternoon in Senate Education.
The proposal was introduced Wednesday afternoon in the Senate Education Committee by Sen. Steve Heffernan (R-Addison).
The amendment would move Vermont toward a Unified School System designed to create a more efficient, transparent, and accountable and cost-effective education structure.
Supporters say it mirrors reforms under consideration in states such as Delaware, New Jersey and Wisconsin, and reflects the long-standing statewide model used in Hawaii, which operates a single public school system serving about 165,000 students across its islands.
Under the proposal, Vermont would replace its current system of multiple supervisory unions, supervisory districts and local school districts with a single statewide district structure.
The plan would expand access to public, independent, alternative and specialized schools, while establishing universal open enrollment. Parents would be able to choose any qualifying public or independent school in the state, subject to capacity and enrollment policies set by law. Heffernan said this would give families “meaningful choice” within a publicly funded system.
The parental choice mechanism would be Vermont Education Accounts for every student age 5-18. Parents could allocate funds to any qualifying school.
The proposal seeks clear and uniform standards for curriculum, assessment, graduation and matriculation across Vermont. At the same time, schools would retain flexibility to meet diverse student needs.
While governance would be consolidated at the state level, the amendment emphasizes preserving community engagement through school-level governing and advisory boards. It also directs policymakers to account for the unique needs of rural communities and small schools to ensure reasonable access to public education statewide.
Act 73, passed in 2025, set Vermont on a path toward a few large school districts. Heffernan’s amendment would attempt a further step — moving from a system of regional districts to a single statewide district model.
Supporters argue that Vermont’s small size and declining enrollment make it well-suited for a unified structure, potentially reducing administrative overhead and clarifying lines of accountability.
Critics, however, are expected to raise concerns about the loss of local control, the logistics of statewide enrollment, transportation challenges in rural areas, and the impact on community identity tied to local schools.
The Senate Education Committee is expected to continue reviewing the proposal in the coming weeks.
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Categories: Education
This seems like a brilliant solution to the education system reform ongoing stuckness. It seems possible, within this design, that more local control can be written into this larger, unified scheme. I hope a lot of people see this! I hope critical and creative thinking and collaborating will prevail! Thank you for sponsoring this, Sen. Heffernan! And thanks for putting this out there, Guy!
Amen! Get it done. Hoping that “meaningful choice” includes support for home schooling as well…
JJBottiggi
So you can choose from any crappy government school of your choice and our taxes are still going up?
How is this a better path?
How do you see parents having more local control when there would be no local school board members. Our schools throughout our country, with the exception of Hawaii so it seems, have long had school boards who were locally known who ensured local control – not big government controlled. One school district would inherently mean big government controlled.
Sounds more like a potential for a liberal indoctrination tool.
Not if patents can control where the money goes and they have the independence to chose from all public and all approved independent schools. Choice gives parents agency – an agency the school now needs to pay attention to. A statewide district will just be more of the same without giving the parents the agency to choose the school.
That’s right, Retta. This is something that should be administered with NUANCE. If people are creative with this, it could be a model for everywhere. This state is small enough to have some administrative things done by the larger union, while there can still be choice of schools (including home schooling) and local control for other decisions at the same time. Sounds like a POTENTIAL win-win to me. But, yes, the devil’s in the details, to be sure…. Not helpful to lay pejorative labels on this idea, especially at this point!
If you want Vermont to do something, just say California do it this way!!
Thank you Senator Heffernan for offering a solution that would allow parents choice and expand options outside of the public school system by allowing independent schools access to funding for families/students who choose these. This is what real educational opportunity looks like and it is 100% better than what House Education Chair Peter Conlon (D- Addison) had proposed with mega districts, rural school closures and consolidation, ending town tuitioning, destroying approved Independents schools ability to access funding and locking kids into public schools only. Thank you for trying and for offering a path through the Act 73 nightmare. Student centered education is the answer.