NEWPORT CITY- Area school boards and administrators are reacting to the passage of Act 73, the landmark education reform bill. The bill was signed into law this past legislative session, with the intent to reduce the cost of education and bring tax relief to Vermonters. The cornerstone of the new law is a directive to consolidate supervisory unions into as few as five geographic regions.
Last Thursday, North Country Supervisory Union (NCSU), Orleans Central Supervisory Union (OCSU) and Essex North Supervisory Union (ENSU) personnel hosted a meeting to discuss how to address the new law. Currently, a special committee authorized by Act 73 is drafting three alternative models to consolidate school and supervisory union districts.
The hour-long conversation is a first step in taking a proactive role in shaping the future of education in the Northeast Kingdom. Essentially there are two courses of action under consideration.
-Be passive and let the special committee draw the geographic boundaries without local input.
-Develop an expanded supervisory union that meets the minimum requirements of Act 73 and then lobby the special committee to adopt the plan.
Coventry School Board member Praneet Menon moderated the meeting. He said the goal is to brainstorm ideas with area supervisory union districts, and do what’s right for their constituents.
One of the key stipulations in Act 73 is to create supervisory unions with between 4,000 and 8,000 students (if practicable). Referring to these parameters, Menon said because of the geographic size of a consolidated supervisory union in northeastern Vermont, it isn’t practical to meet the 4,000 student threshold.
An unidentified person participating via Zoom asked why the supervisory union district of Kingdom East wasn’t invited to the meeting. Following a brief discussion, the general consensus was to include Kingdom East in future strategy sessions.
Former educator and school administrator John Castle is now the executive director of the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative. He characterized Act 73 as bad legislation.
“It was not thought through, not based on research, and not based on cost,” Castle said. “The idea is larger economies of scale are less expensive. The fact that it is larger becomes more costly.”
He optimistically said there’s a strong possibility “this will all go away.”
“We need to be the biggest pain we can be so it all goes away,” Castle said. He said the legislature will create arbitrary boundaries, there are marginal benefits to consolidating, this will be a political process, and local communities need to push back.
OCSU high school board member Barbara Postman advocates in favor of pushing back.
“Everyone feels there is a need to change,” Postman said. She said the legislature skipped over addressing issues such as aging school buildings. Consolidating supervisory union districts won’t solve local problems,
NCSU high school board member Graham Rae agreed.
“They took away school construction aid. PCB’s (mitigation at North Country Union High School) was a debacle,” Rae said. “We end up doing foolish things and don’t know if it’s been resolved.”
Rae said the law is ridiculous and no analysis was done to forecast the outcome of supervisory union consolidation.
Menon agrees they should push back against Act 73, but doesn’t want to put their eggs in one basket. If push back isn’t effective, they need to look at options.
An unidentified attendee said the new legislation’s funding formula will result in rural communities receiving less state aid.
“The main premise of the larger district is to make the foundation formula work,” Castle said. “Large districts spread the cost out. They (special committee) will look at boundaries based on money, not geography and benefit of the students.”
There is a general consensus among the participants at the meeting that there’s no proof the passage of Act 73 will lead to savings. Local taxpayers won’t be able to vote on their school budgets; that authority is now vested in the Agency of Education and the Tax Department. If a proposed school budget exceeds the amount of funds allocated from the Education Fund, local taxpayers will be able to vote on the additional appropriation.
The bottom line for NCSU Superintendent Elaine Collins is to support principals working to improve educational outcomes. As the superintendent for the largest geographic supervisory union in Vermont, Collins said it makes no sense to have one superintendent. She attends 11 elementary school board meetings, one high school and one junior high school board meeting monthly. Plus executive committee meetings, and a myriad of special meetings. The only way to attend meetings in a larger supervisory union is to hire more assistant superintendents, which negates savings as a result of consolidation.
“There are logistical considerations,” Collins said. “There’s a geographic reality; it’s not feasible to have one central office.”
Collins said the law relies on the premise the only way to save money is to consolidate schools. She agrees with Postman and Rae there is no state aid for construction projects to renovate schools and make space for more students.
“It will cost more to consolidate schools, and it will have no bearing on student outcomes,” Collins predicted. “If Act 46 worked, we wouldn’t have Act 73.”
Act 46 was enacted in 2015 with the goal of merging school districts as a means of improving educational quality and reducing costs. The consolidation was a result of declining student enrollment and increasing property taxes, the primary education funding source.
The meeting ended with an agreement to work together to develop strategies to minimize the impact Act 73 will have on geographically rural supervisory union districts.
“People wanted tax relief, not transformation,” Castle concluded.