The Education Challenges Design Team was in brainstorming mode three meetings into its fast-track reorganization proposal for the Vermont Legislature on Monday.
The group of 13 educators, administrative staff and members is charged with devising a school restructuring plan that will save the state $20 million in fiscal year 2011 and $50.5 million in 2012.
The group is also tasked with achieving educational “outcomes” — increasing the number of high school graduates and the percentage of graduates who go on to college. Its deadline for presenting proposals to the Legislature is March 30.
During a two-hour discussion, the team circled around several ways to achieve the required savings and outcomes. This included how to create a minimum student-to-teacher ratio and consolidating the state’s 280 individual school districts into 40 to 50 unified districts, based on the existing supervisory union structure. In this system, school board members would represent individual towns on a larger, district-wide board.
The state currently has 60 supervisory unions. The Vermont Association of School Business Officials recommends that any redistricting scenarios be based on the existing system.
Armando Vilaseca, Vermont Education commissioner, said he didn’t want to eliminate an exact number of unified districts, but he named a few very small supervisory unions – Blue Mountain, Winooski and Battenkill, with 400 to 500 students — that may need to be combined with larger districts in a reconfiguration plan.
Vilaseca pointed to his predecessor Richard Cate’s white paper on school consolidation, which was floated in 2004, as a template for the number and size of future districts.
Vilaseca pointed to his predecessor Richard Cate’s white paper on school consolidation, which was floated in 2004, as a template for the number and size of future districts. Unified school districts under this plan would have about 1,250 students.
“We want to look at ways to better manage the non-educational, administrative functions – payroll, purchasing, transportation, food services – that won’t be felt at the kid level, but that could save money and reduce duplicated efforts,” Vilaseca said.
The Education Challenges Design Team is part of a larger state reorganization effort called Challenges for Change, which was enacted into law early in the legislative session – Feb. 25. There are six Challenge teams charged with creating 11 different reorganization plans. Included are: education, special education, mental health and state developmental services, children and family services, state contracting, corrections, economic development and regulatory reform.
The Legislature wants each team to find ways to make government more efficient; a total of $38 million has already been removed from the department budgets as a counterweight to the state’s $151 million deficit for fiscal year 2011. The target for total Challenges reductions is $177 million, and the projected overall shortfall for the state is estimated to be $200 million in 2012.
All of the restructuring plans are to be presented to lawmakers at the end of this month.
The Legislature wants each team to find ways to make government more efficient; a total of $38 million has already been removed from the department budgets as a counterweight to the state’s $151 million deficit for fiscal year 2011. The target for total Challenges reductions is $177 million, and the projected overall shortfall for the state is estimated to be $200 million in 2012.
Yesterday’s meeting, led by Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca, was the first to be open to the public, and about six people, including two lawmakers, attended. (The other Challenges teams, which consist of administrative staff, are not publicly accessible.) In the first two meetings, the team discussed the ground rules and came up with a list of 61 cost-cutting ideas.
A sticking point in yesterday’s discussion was whether the approximately $20 million school districts have already saved through their own budget cuts for fiscal 2011 can be applied to the Challenges savings targets.
The Challenges law specifies that the savings for fiscal years 2011 and 2012 come from two general areas: school administration ($13.3 million) and special education ($7 million). In 2012, the state has proposed removing an additional $40 million from school administration and $10 million from special education. So far, the latter has not yet been addressed in detail.
A sticking point in yesterday’s discussion was whether the approximately $20 million school districts have already saved through their own budget cuts for fiscal 2011 can be applied to the Challenges savings targets. Approximately $1 million to $2 million of that money came from administrative savings, according to Bill Talbott, chief financial officer for the Vermont Department of Education.
Tom O’Brien, superintendent for the Addison Northwest Supervisory Union, asked whether those would satisfy the law. “We accrued $17 million to $20 million in savings this year,” O’Brien said. “Is that on the table?”
Tom Evslin, Challenges for Change coordinator for the Douglas administration, argued they would not. He said those savings in programs and direct instruction have not brought the state closer to achieving the aggressive goals for trimming base costs for school administration for fiscal 2012. Vilaseca, however, said the law gave them some room for interpretation. The issue remained unresolved at the end of the meeting.
Evslin recommended that they keep their eyes on the big picture. “Let’s not let the tail of this year’s savings wag the dog,” he said. “Let’s imagine what the school system should look like in 2012 or 2013, and let’s forget how we get there.”
Evslin said they had some agreement on the number of school districts, based on Cate’s earlier work, and the idea that common non-instructional services, such as accounting, should be paid for by the state. “That’s where we think we want to be,” Evslin said.
The team examined data from the Vermont Department of Education that listed school employees statewide by job category and the student-teacher ratio for every school in the state. The numbers were self-reported by schools in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
Administrative services cost state $275 million a year
In all, there are approximately 13,230 teachers and aides and 1,370 staff (including guidance counselors, nurses, administrative assistants), plus an additional 670 instructional staff (including athletic directors, curriculum coordinators, librarians) in Vermont’s schools. Together, these three groups represent 79 percent of the state’s educational employees.
About 4,400 Vermonters are employed in administrative services, or about 16 percent of the educational workforce in the state.
The four administrative areas that come under the team’s purview are: general administration (superintendents and support staff), school administration (including principals, bookkeepers, department heads, special education directors), central support services (including business managers, planning personnel and secretaries) and plant maintenance.
About 4,400 Vermonters are employed in administrative services, or about 16 percent of the educational workforce in the state. An additional 5 percent of workers are transportation and food service staff.
The total cost of administrative services statewide is approximately $287 million, according to figures from Talbott. The team is charged with finding a total of $57 million in savings from those services in fiscal year 2011 and 2012.
Talbott said some school board members are telling him the state should “do it as an allocation — just give us our number, and we’ll figure it out.”
Carl Mock, River Valley Technical Center director, said if the state asked local districts to cut $40 million in administrative costs for fiscal year 2012, it would amount to about $676,000 on average for each supervisory union.
State Education Board team member Stephan Morse said asking districts to take the lead on the reductions is too arbitrary. “It’s our responsibility to be creative and suggest a way the money can be saved.”
“That’s the elephant in the room,” said John Hollar, chair of the Montpelier School Board. “Who decides at the state or local level?”
Raising student-teacher to 15 to 1 would save $120 million
The mean student-teacher ratio is 10.5 to 1 statewide, according to statistics from the department. The teachers cited in that statistic include anyone who provides direct instruction to students — art, music and physical education teachers – and so it is not a reflection of true class size, according to Talbott. The ratio also does not include teachers’ aides.
Talbott said if the state increased the student-teacher ratio to 13 to 1, it would save $73 million. A student-teacher ratio of 15 to 1 would save $120 million. The savings represent salaries only and do not include benefits or administrative costs, he said.
Vilaseca was ambivalent about dictating ratios to schools. “If we wanted to go with recommended average class sizes – to me that is an administrative function,” he said.
Vilaseca said principals ought to be able to make decisions about reducing staff as needed.
Morse said he supports mandated ratios and that the government needs to provide incentives for schools to consolidate.
Evslin said the student to teacher ratios can be managed through attrition over time as older teachers retire.
He said the merger discussions between Brookline and Newfane (Morse’s home school district) “might have happened sooner had there been some incentive.”
Morse pointed out that the Challenges law includes money for reinvestment in schools, and he suggested that it be used to encourage small schools to consolidate.
“Just mandating class size is going to take us away from the outcomes,” Evslin said. “Just saying small schools are too small, and they need to cut back (on the number of teachers,) isn’t enough.”
Evslin said the student to teacher ratios can be managed through attrition over time as older teachers retire.
The team also discussed distance learning alternatives for advanced placement classes through interactive, Web-based coursework. Evslin said the state should have the broadband capacity in two years to enable schools to use interactive video for instruction. Vilaseca said schools that send students to virtual classes conducted by another district could help defray a teacher’s salary.
Upcoming meeting schedule
Thursday, March 18
Monday, March 22
Tuesday, March 23
Thursday, March 25
All meetings will be held 3–5 p.m. in the Education Commissioner’s Office, 120 State St., 4th Floor, (above the Department of Motor Vehicles), Montpelier.
Design Team members
1. Armando Vilaseca, Education commissioner, Design Team chair
2. Bill Talbott, DOE CFO, Design Team vice chair
3. Laurie Hodgden, Milton Middle School/High School principal
4. John Tague, BFA Fairfax math teacher
5. Tom O’Brien, Addison Northwest SU superintendent
6. Marilyn Frederick, Lamoille North SU business manager
7. Carl Mock, River Valley Technical Center director
8. John Hollar, Montpelier School Board chair
9. Ellie McGarry, Rutland City SD Student Support coordinator
10. Rob Levine, Northern Vermont chapter of the American Red Cross executive director
11. Stephan Morse, state Board of Education representative.
