BRATTLEBORO-Members of the Vermont School District Redistricting Task Force are in final meetings to analyze how to shrink education costs.
Last week, the 11 members, who are in favor of voluntary district mergers, said that rather than pursue a map based on counties or career and technical education (CTE), they now favor a 10-year plan with district incentives to merge so as to gain state construction aid and develop regional high schools with regions sharing cooperative services.
"I'm proud of our work, and I encourage people to read the report," Sen. Wendy Harrison (D-Windham), told The Commons on Nov. 17, saying the Task Force includes "a good balance of legislators and experienced Vermont educators."
"We agreed from the start to prioritize evidence-based information and the goal of increasing effective and equitable education districts," said Harrison, of Brattleboro, one of six lawmakers on the panel.
With some far-flung districts in the state and four public hearings under their belts, Task Force co-Chair Chittenden Democrat Sen. Martine Larocque Gulick said none of the feedback has supported the work the focus group is doing or the maps it has made.
The Task Force meets to complete its work Nov. 20 and has been charged to submit a report to the state Legislature Dec. 1.
As legislators ponder ways to expand educational opportunities while curtailing costs, the group was formed under Act 73 to recommend new school district boundaries and configurations, realizing the state has fewer students than it did 25 years ago yet a comparable number of schools, although support services and costs are higher.
'Take care to not cause harm'
The Task Force's approach of recommending a none-of-the-above option has drawn criticism from Gov. Phil Scott.
"Last year, Vermonters spoke loudly and clearly: their property taxes are too high," the governor posted on social media on Nov. 17. "That's one of the reasons why we need to move forward with education transformation. If we stick with the status quo, taxpayers will continue to see significant property tax increases year after year, while students see opportunities slashed.
"I will not accept that," he wrote.
Education Secretary Zoie Saunders told the Task Force that its proposal doesn't match Act 73's intention because it doesn't recommend a particular map. She also noted the potential of creating an even more complex system with more red tape and costing more.
Harrison serves as chair of the Institutions Committee, clerk and ranking member of the Transportation Committee, and sits on the CHIP Subcommittee.
"The majority of us rejected forced mergers, putting kids first and local control a close second," she said. "We saw that cooperative service agencies (unlike forced mergers) are a proven method to reduce costs.
"The first of these agencies is already in place in our area and is not another layer of bureaucracy. The data shows that central Windham County could become a public school desert if we're not careful, and the Task Force's majority recommendations address this concern."
Harrison said she has spoken at length with teachers, administrators, and school board members prior to the Task Force work.
The Task Force heard from more than 5,000 Vermonters and "most said that we should slow down, directly address the drivers of increasing costs, help support school facilities, and take care to not cause harm."
"My overarching position going into this work was that public education must survive and thrive throughout Vermont because effective and accessible public education is essential to maintaining a healthy democracy," Harrison said.
"I also saw opportunities for support of school facilities through the work of the Institutions Committee, which I chair, as well as opportunities to coordinate school transportation with other under-funded transportation needs," she added. "I still hold these values and opinions."
Harrison also said she "generally agrees" with the Vermont Superintendents Association's reaction to the work of the Task Force, especially their recommendation that the tax policy in Act 73 should proceed independently and that "fiscal policy should serve, not dictate, education policy."
And she agrees with Saunders that "it would be better to manage school choice through policy than through governance structure."
"School choice is a complicated and critically important part of these conversations," said Harrison. "Local control means different things to different people. The autonomy of school districts is important in different ways to different districts.
"My opinion is that the current system is unnecessarily complicated and that we should extract school choice policy from being intertwined with school district policy," she added. "As stated in our draft Task Force report, we should 'realign the tuition system with its original purpose: ensuring access to education rather than creating market completion.'"
Follow meetings and review the testimony received on the Redistricting Task Force at its website.
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.