[R]eactions from top officials and fellow lawmakers began Friday on an education reform bill that the House Education Committee passed earlier this week.
After months of work, the committee approved the much-anticipated 51-page bill late in the day on Thursday, before legislators leave the capitol for Town Meeting Day.
H.361 calls on school districts across the state to work together to find ways to find efficiencies for taxpayers and improved educational opportunities for students through a series of changes and requirements aimed at shrinking the number of school districts down from the present 277.
If passed, the legislation would establish larger school systems statewide, setting a minimum enrollment of 1,100 pupils.
Reactions from state officials and lawmakers
Gov. Peter Shumlin praised the committee’s work on the “big bill” in a statement, saying that he thinks the bill will serve as a foundation for the Legislature’s work on education through the rest of the session.
“Together, I am hopeful that we will pass legislation to help districts control education spending, strengthen academic offerings, and ensure their schools are able to provide the best education for our children at a price taxpayers can afford,” the governor said.
House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton, in a statement, made clear that there is plenty of work still to be done.
“Vermonters want tax relief,” Turner said. “Balancing what’s affordable and what’s best for our kids will not be an easy task, but Vermonters are counting on us to make these tough decisions which will provide better future outcomes.”
Meanwhile, the Agency of Education is focusing on how to provide school districts with the legal and fiscal support they might need as they transition, according to a memo to House lawmakers from Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe.
“We appreciate the efforts you are making to increasingly focus the bill, so that we can likewise focus our efforts on supporting this transition,” Holcombe said.
Work begins in other committees
The House bill passed next door to the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday where work began.
Later in the day, the Senate Education Committee began scrutinizing the language drawn up by their House colleagues, as Legislative Council staff Donna Russo-Savage brought members there up to speed on the House bill.
Russo-Savage said the legislation encourages equity of educational opportunities, quality standards set by the Agency of Education and State Board of Education, and efficiencies for taxpayers where possible. The bill does not do away with grants for small schools entirely.
“It envisions that each area is going to make sense of what makes sense for it,” Russo-Savage said.
The bill, Russo-Savage noted, said the grant for small schools would continue indefinitely for small schools who join the larger educational systems. The grants would also continue until bonds are paid off if a larger district does end up deciding down the road to close a small school.
Small schools that do not join larger systems would be able, in certain exceptions such as geographic necessity and high enough ratios and quality standards, to retain their grants, the legislation specifies.
Districts are pushed to join the new larger systems by July 1, 2019.
“I just wonder if we’re making this too complicated,” said Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, as the bill was discussed.
The bill also will stop the flow of public education dollars to out-of-state schools, except to border towns in other states and in a few exceptions such as special education placements or if geographically it makes more sense, and the State Board of Education signs off on that, explained Russo-Savage.
Russo-Savage said schools don’t have to close under the legislation, explaining in a larger system, there would be one school board, and there would be more ability to move staff around.
“The impetus for this is to get a move to prek-12 supervisory districts,” said Russo-Savage, with proposals coming from local areas. There are incentives to encourage districts across the state “to move towards that,” she said.
