Story + video: Consolidation plans draw fire from private school proponents; public school officials support voluntary mergers

Photo by Anne Galloway

The first scheduled public hearing on school consolidation at the Statehouse was canceled last month because of a February snowstorm.

Last night, a different kind of storm overtook lawmakers’ best-laid plans to hear from Vermonters concerned about several bills under review by the Senate and House Education Committees, reducing Vermont’s public school districts from about 280 to 16. The school districts are currently grouped into 60 supervisory unions. (Vermont has 311 individual schools and 256 towns.)

The bills most talked about on Wednesday, S.252 and the “Peltz bill,” would require a radical streamlining of educational districts and individual municipal school districts to form unified union districts, with a single board overseeing a number of schools within a large geographic area. The Senate bill, however, includes a mandatory provision requiring consolidation of schools within a 10-mile radius, while under the House bill, school mergers aren’t compulsory; instead, the bill provides tax incentives for voluntary closures of small schools.

S.252 was drafted by Sen. Bob Hartwell, D-Bennington, and the House bill, which doesn’t yet have a number, was drafted by Peltz and members of the House Education Committee. Several other bills have been proposed by Heidi Scheuerman, R-Stowe, and Patti Komline, R-Dorset, but were not the focus of testimony on Wednesday.

According to Rep. Peter Peltz, D-Woodbury, a sponsor of one of the bills, school consolidation efforts have been ongoing for 100 years. There have been 20 attempts; all have failed.

A Nor’easter of public opinion hit legislators from proponents of private schools, who fear a redrawing of school supervisory districts will leave them out in the cold. These parents, educators and students repeatedly expressed the same concerns that the new legislation would lead to an elimination of funding for school districts who “tuition out” students to independent schools. (Municipalities in Vermont that do not fund their own schools have traditionally sent their students to private or public schools at taxpayers’ expense.)

Neither bill explicitly calls for changes to the current tuition-town programs now in place, though Peltz says expanding public school districts could pose a potential threat to private schools unless choice is opened up for all towns. Or, he said, a sending or tuition town could form its own contiguous school unit around a private school.

The concerns voiced by officials and parents from public schools about whether the consolidation plans will lead to lower costs and improved school quality for the state’s 89,000 students were nearly drowned out by the large contingent of private school activists who represented about 11,000 students, about a third of whom receive tuition vouchers (paid for by taxpayers) to attend private schools.

Nearly 200 people from around the state — advocates for private school choice, educators, school board members and students — descended on the Statehouse at around 4:30 in the afternoon, lining up outside the main hallway, waiting to enter Room 11, which accommodates about 50 people.

In the first half of the hearing, which ran from 5 p.m. until after 9:45 p.m., more than half of the more than 100 speakers were affiliated with several independent schools. Many wore “Vermonters for school choice” stickers.

Residents of Pittsfield, Stockbridge and Brookfield were the largest group in the crowd, and they came out to the hearing for one reason: To protest S.252 and the Peltz bill on the grounds that both proposals would hamper their ability to send their students to The Sharon Academy in Sharon because the school would no longer be considered a part of new school districts. All three municipalities are tuition towns.

Many parents told lawmakers they specifically moved to towns that tuition out students to take advantage of that perquisite. The speakers at the hearing touted the cost-effectiveness and quality of private education.

Roberto Abele, who teaches at St. Johnsbury Academy, a private school in St. Johnsbury, said he moved with his family to Kirby 10 years ago because of the state’s progressive reputation. He liked the idea of living in a tuition town because he wanted his daughters to have access to public and private schools in the area.

“If the current legislation is approved, will both of my daughters have to attend different schools?” Abele asked. “This is not choice. This is not progress. This is regressive legislation that will create a giant step backward for Vermont’s educational system.”

Jill Remick, communications director for the Department of Education, said school choice is just one piece of a larger discussion about consolidation of public school districts. Both bills and the Department of Education’s Transformation Report call for the expansion of school choice for public school students who, in the new system, could choose between several different public schools within the larger districts.

“It seemed like some people were barking up the wrong tree,” Remick said. “It’s too bad, in a way; there are a number of significant issues that could be addressed.”

Rep. Oliver Olsen, R-Jamaica, also believed S.252 would have a negative impact on school choice for students who attend independent schools. He said in a survey he conducted, 92 percent of respondents in his district opposed S.252. He said he received four times as many responses to his education survey as he did to his Vermont Yankee query.

Ed Metcalf, a former director of the Twin Valley School District, says a recent consolidation effort has saved Whitingham and Wilmington millions of dollars. He said a new middle and high school union district have kept cost increases to 1.1 percent a year on average.

Nevertheless, Metcalf is critical of the state’s funding mechanism for education, Act 68, which he says creates new inequalities. “Small schools are cutting essential programs, while large schools spend more money on luxuries that small and medium schools never had,” Metcalf told the crowd.

Steve Sanborn, chief operating officer for the Essex-Caledonia Supervisory Union, says his district has already taken many of the steps outlined in both bills proposed by the Vermont Legislature. The districts have consolidated teacher contract negotiations, special education services, preschool services, policies and financial services.

Essex-Caledonia Supervisory Union also recently closed the Granby Elementary School when its student population dwindled. He said townspeople came together to make the decision. “They decided to close it down as a community,” Sanborn said.

“The towns I represent don’t support S.252,” Sanborn said, adding that they would back voluntary mergers as proposed under Peltz’s bill.

Clyde Baldwin, of the Charlotte School Board, says the cost drivers for education are salaries, benefits and mandates that require staff. He said the best way to keep expenses down is to give local school boards more latitude in dealing with those issues.

“We’ve been down this road before, and it’s well established that consolidation doesn’t save any money,” Baldwin said.

The Vermont Association of School Business Officials has conducted research based on data from the Department of Education. The state could save $30 million by moving toward unified school districts within the existing 60 supervisory unions, according to Steve Hier, the Springfield School District business manager and a member of the association. He said there is a significant reduction in per-pupil spending between unified districts and those that have multiple boards within a supervisory union. In addition, Hier said, raising the teacher-pupil ratios could save $29 million.

“We looked at the 14 existing single districts (supervisory unions that have unified boards) who model what our proposal would be and compared them to the multi-district supervisory unions,” Hier said. “We found significant cost savings. Single school districts spend less per pupil.”

Officials and school board members from Addison Northwest Supervisory Union, which recently moved toward a unified board that represents five towns – Vergennes, Ferrisburg, Addison, Panton and Waltham – said the “top-down approach” of S.252, in which the state would decide which schools would close, would undermine Vermont schools.

When Addison Northwest created one unified board for its eight separate school districts, officials said they confronted public fears around the loss of local control, uncertainty about financial gain and the potential closure of school buildings. They said statewide plans for unified districts could create a backlash among local voters.

Cheryl Brinkman, of Vergennes, a member of the union’s new single district board, said: “When I read S.252, that was exactly the nightmare our community feared. There is little say in how the boundaries will be drawn, no incentive or financial guarantee, and it threatens to close school buildings.”

She said the state would have better luck moving consolidation efforts forward under Peltz’s House bill, which she said empowers local communities to share resources and common goals.

“It’s imperative that people feel they’re a part of this whole movement,” Brinkman said. I strongly feel that change from the top down won’t succeed.”

Tom O’Brien, superintendent of Addison Northwest, said the reason why 90 percent of school budgets pass, despite strong opposition from the Douglas administration, is because of local involvement in school boards. He said this local control also created an opportunity to voluntarily consolidate eight separate school district boards into one unified board.

Sperry Wilson, of Strafford, said there is no evidence any of the proposals for consolidation will fix the state’s budget shortfall. Her town, she said, unanimously passed a resolution decrying passage of school consolidation legislation.

“Will redistricting and consolidation save money while also improving education in Vermont?” Wilson asked rhetorically. “I urge you not to choose one at the expense of the other.”