The Vermont Statehouse. VTD/Josh Larkin
On Thursday, the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators was granted the authority to waive its governing rules at its discretion with no public or legislative oversight.
The Vermont branch of the National Education Association vehemently opposes the new rule.
The standards board is responsible for licensure requirements, teacher misconduct rules and license endorsements for teachers which allow them to teach specific subjects. The board also sets requirements for education masters degrees in both public and private colleges.
Mark Oettinger, general counsel for the Vermont Department of Education, said the waiver system was a continuation of powers previously held by the state Board of Education. Oversight of the state’s teachers was passed from the board of education to the Standards Board after Act 214 called for the creation of the new board in 2006.
Act 214 passed all oversight powers previously held by the Board of Education on to the Standards Board. Oettinger said the Standards Board simply overlooked the language regarding waivers.
Oettinger said the rule change enables communities that desperately need teachers to waive certain licensing or endorsement requirements. This would only happen rarely, he said.
“The NEA never objected to waiver authority that the state Board of Education had in the past,” Oettinger said.
Darren Allen, communications director of Vermont NEA, said the rule is “a blank check for them to decide ‘we don’t want to follow the rules, and we’re not gonna.’” Allen said the board did not clarify their reasoning for the rule or give any examples of its usefulness.
The Vermont NEA’s concern stems from the fact that its members — the roughly 19,000 educators in Vermont schools — must meet licensing requirements.
In a public comment on the proposed rule, the Vermont NEA said, “In the absence of explicit and broad statutory authority to waive the rules it is authorized to promulgate, it is improper for the Standards Board (or Department of Education) to purport to authorize itself to do so.”
At the meeting of the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, where the new rule was decided, the standards board’s chair Janet Steward said she couldn’t think of an example of a time when the board has wanted to waive any of its rules. After nearly an hour of negotiations, NEA and Department of Education representatives filed back into the meeting without reaching a verdict on the waiver provision.
Oettinger argued that because the board is comprised of educators, it is unlikely they would misuse the waiver rule. The board is made up of seven teachers, two education administrators, one member of the public, one school board member and one representative of teacher preparatory programs from both public and private institutions.
“The notion that there would be some sort of a failure in the system because [the board’s] 13 education professionals would seek to undermine the very valid licensing rules,” said Oettinger, “it’s pretty unthinkable.”
The Administrative Rules Committee adopted the rule in a 4 to 3 vote.
The committee also approved a number of other rules and was briefed on various developments:
- The Department of Corrections was granted authorization to send home offenders on reintegration furlough – an early release program that allows offenders to be released before their minimum sentence is up – even earlier. Certain offenders serving one-year sentences will now be eligible for reintegration furlough any time during their sentence, according to Dale Crook, a field services specialist with the department. Previously, those offenders could only be released within 180 days of the end of their minimum sentence.
- Robin Arnell, an attorney for the Office of Child Support, presented an update to the tables used to determine child support payments. By statute, these must be updated every four years, Arnell said. The payment tables now include the total cost of raising a child is 24 percent, 37 percent and 45 percent of an individual’s income to raise one, two or three children, respectively.
- The Department of Vermont Health Access introduced a rule which redefines coverage of over-the-counter drugs, which Health Program Administrator Greg Needle said will save the state an estimated $172,000 in the general fund annually. The rule, he said, was designed to “ensure that coverage is safe, effective, appropriate” and cost effective. The rule narrowed the list of covered drugs to ones that were known to be both effective and reasonably priced.
- The Dr. Dynasaur plan was amended to accommodate families who were slightly late in paying for the plan. The coverage requires up-front payment before it takes effect. The rule today extended a 30-day grace period on all children’s plans so that their coverage would not be terminated because of a delay in payment. The rule also included a provision which allows immediate reduction of premiums when a family’s situation changes in a way that reduces premiums. Previously, these reductions went into effect in the following billing period.
- The Department of Labor presented an updated set of rules around unemployment insurance, which haven’t been updated recently. The rules include new language around phone and email filings. “The primary purpose for us being here today is to bring these rules into the modern era,” said Dirk Anderson, general counsel for the Department of Labor.
