By Michael Bielawski

Three speakers for the Vermont Superintendents Association and another for the Vermont Association of School Business Officials sounded off on Gov. Phil Scott’s latest proposals to overhaul education spending and governance. They were generally unsupportive of these efforts.

“The current disorganized and politicized debate is not benefiting public education and instead promotes school vouchers and state takeover,” Amy Minor, President of the  Vermont Superintendents Association, said to the House Education Committee on Tuesday afternoon. The whole roughly 1-hour meeting can be seen here:

Key areas of disagreement with the governor’s proposal and the initial proposals of H. 454 in the House Education Committee (a bill that has since been overhauled) include having only five districts and having $13,000 block grants per student that may force dramatic spending cuts for some communities. There are some areas they somewhat agree with, such as class size minimums.

Chelsea Myers, the executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, also had critical words for these proposals.

“It is abundantly clear that the primary unilateral appointment structures of our state leadership structures, the Agency of Education and the State Board of Education, have become deeply political and representative of a narrow set of interests,” Myers said.

Five districts not local enough?

On the matter of district consolidation, Myers said they recommend that lawmakers create a working group “to guide district consolidation with a clear purpose.” She suggested that five districts could be problematic.

“I think you all have found that it’s very complex when you actually get into the local communities and think about expanding those district sizes,” Myers said.They also discussed how if an administrative body gets too removed from the local classrooms and students, then that disconnect means the best policy decisions are not always clear.

No more Supervisory Unions?

Morgan Daybell, a past president of the Vermont Association of School Business Officials, talked about the challenges of Supervisory Unions. These are broader governance bodies that oversee multiple school districts. In Vermont currently, there are 52 of these unions overseeing 115 districts. 

Daybell is also the business manager for the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union.  Her comments suggested that they would like to see some reforms to this governance model as she expressed how her office deals with redundancy and inefficiencies.

“But we still have to broker split contracts across our three districts for shared staffing. It is difficult to reassign district-funded staff across those district lines, and we have to maintain three senior lists for determining bumping rights, in the event of reductions in force,” Daybell said.

Block grants mean cuts?

Another area where they were critical is the proposed block grant per student. In (the initial version of) H. 454, sponsored by six Republicans, there was a proposal for a $1,320,000 block grant per student, which would be adjusted for students with special needs.

Minor suggested that this would result in tough cuts for existing high-spending schools. The average for Vermont, according to the US Census Bureau for that year, was $23,586 for the 2022-2023 school year.

“That’s something that hasn’t really been talked about, but I know in some districts that is a reality,” Minor said. “That thirteen-two [$13,200] in that foundation formula means removing programs and opportunities for kids.”

Class-size

They discussed what is the ideal class size. Minor said their recommendation is for 12 students in kindergarten, 15 for grades one through five, and eight for grades six through 12. There would also be a limit of not more than two grades per classroom.

Minor suggested there are benefits to larger class sizes for collaborative teaching and more diverse interactions. She noted there are logistical challenges sometimes with small schools.

School Choice

Myers gave some recommendations for school choice policy.

“Hold private schools [that receive public dollars via tuitioning] to the same standards as public schools,” Myers said. They would also like to limit tuition dollars from leaving Vermont except for in the case of public schools within twenty-five miles of the Vermont border, not including Canada.

Myers accused the Administration’s plan of pushing money out of the public sector. She said, “We have been and will continue to be in a legal environment that expands vouchers and sends public dollars to private schools nationally, including religious schools.”

Reach out to your lawmakers

See all bills assigned to the House Education 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:

All committee transcripts are available at http://www.goldendomevt.com. The Committee meeting video is available at the committees’ YouTube channels. The committee meets in Room M103 for House Education.

The author is a writer for the Vermont Daily Chronicle