Rebecca Holcombe, secretary of the Agency of Education, speaks about the new education governance reform bill at a meeting of the State Board of Education on Thursday at the Okemo Mountain Resort. Board Chairman Stephan Morse is to the secretary’s right. Photo by Amy Ash Nixon/VTDigger
LUDLOW — The State Board of Education last week addressed the implementation of the state’s new education governance reform law, at its meeting and retreat at Okemo Mountain Resort Thursday and Friday.
Act 46, which was signed into law by Gov. Peter Shumlin earlier this month, calls for the formation of unified pre-K to 12th grade school districts of at least 900 students.
If school boards do not voluntarily restructure districts and if they do not meet state education quality standards, the State Board of Education has the authority to restructure districts, order school board mergers and other changes in 2018.
The board also has the power to assign so-called “orphan” districts to unified systems to ensure equity.
Board member Peter Peltz said decisions are in the communities’ hands, and the board will step in only as a last resort.
Vaughn Altemus, education finance manager for the Vermont Agency of Education, concurred.
“Clearly, there is the intent to give people the option to do this locally as much as possible,” Altemus said. “… I see you as representatives of the students and the parents of the entire state, and as much as localities want to work together, I think that part of your role is to keep your eye on the less well off … to make sure they don’t get lost in the initial shuffle.”
Rebecca Holcombe, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Education, said the agency has met with school board leaders and superintendents of two dozen supervisory unions and a dozen more meetings are planned.
“We have a tremendous lift in front of us,” she said last week.
Some school boards are trying to justify maintaining the status quo, Holcombe said, while others are seeing opportunity in merging school boards.
“People are yearning to hold onto that community connectedness that comes with schools,” Holcombe said. “They don’t want to change, but they recognize we are in this situation and they need to make changes.
“Some of the reasons why folks are anxious about considering mergers … (is) there is an unwillingness in some affluent towns to partner with less wealthy towns, … there is also concern about relinquishing local control,” she said.
About a dozen accelerated mergers are expected during the first year when the most generous tax breaks are available.
“These meetings have been incredibly helpful to the agency in terms of understanding who might be able to take advantage of an accelerated merger,” Holcombe said.
Some communities have asked the agency to provide facilitators for “community conversations.”
“They really want a third party to come in and convene a non-threatening, open conversation about what the opportunities are and what it would look like if they did this well,” she said
Stephan Morse, the board chair, said he is encouraged that more than half the supervisory unions in the state have already reached out to the agency.
It was symbolically important, Morse said, that Gov. Peter Shumlin signed Act 46 at the Chittenden East Supervisory Union, where the state’s first modified union district — the Mount Mansfield Modified Union District — formed last year. The signing ceremony was at the Smilie School in Bolton, a member of a newly formed district.
The Mount Mansfield Modified Union District in its first year is on track to save $300,000, and is looking at adding programs for students. Proponents of the new law hope to see similar financial savings and improved opportunities for students as other districts restructure.
Since 1997, Vermont’s schools have shed some 24,000 pupils, and that trend is projected to continue through at least 2030.
Altemus said the board is obligated under the law to develop a set of criteria to determine which schools will continue to receive small schools grants for the reason of geographic necessity.
Districts that merge will continue to receive small schools grants.
One supervisory union faced with both declining enrollments and geographic challenges is Caledonia North Supervisory Union (CNSU), which serves school districts in the Northeast Kingdom.
Celeste Girrell, chair of the Caledonia North Supervisory Union executive board, said board members plan to learn more about the new law’s options, and will hold public meetings soon to gather resident input.
“Taxpayers are adamant about the cost of education – almost as adamant as parents are about the education of their children,” said Girrell. “This will be a huge challenge for the CNSU board, and all local board members as we reinvent ourselves to meet the new requirements.”
Rep. David Sharpe, D-Bristol, the architect of Act 46 and chair of the House Education Committee, said many community residents equate schools with school districts, “which makes the conversation even more difficult.”
“But, I’m confident that the educators and others that care about the education of our children within a cost taxpayers can afford will persist and find the best arrangement for themselves and their neighbors,” he said.
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