The Education Challenges Design Team had its own challenges last week as it sorted through disagreements about supervisory union mergers and redistricting of Vermont schools, staff-to-student ratios and whether the state could actually attain millions of dollars in savings required by law over the next two fiscal years.
Last week Armando Vilaseca, commissioner of the Department of Education, told team members that he would not be counting on them to come to consensus in advance of his meeting with the Legislature on March 30, when all of the Challenges for Change progress reports will be presented.
Education Challenges Design Team draft minutes, 3/22/10
Education Challenges Design Team draft minutes 3/23/10
Challenges for Change spreadsheet
Vilaseca told the 11-member ad hoc group that he would take under advisement their opinions about proposed sweeping changes to the way Vermont’s schools and special education programs are managed. He decided the team could discontinue its discussions and forego the last scheduled meeting on March 25.
At the meeting held last Tuesday, there remained wide disparities among several members of the team who are directly involved in schools and Douglas administration officials, including Vilaseca, Tom Evslin, chief technology officer, and Stephan Morse, a member of the state Board of Education.
The key areas of contention centered on whether the $20 million school boards saved in general education costs could be counted toward the Challenges target for fiscal year 2011; whether consolidating school districts into unified supervisory districts should be voluntary or mandatory; and whether the state should impose a limit on staff-to-student ratios. Vermont has 280 school districts and
60 supervisory unions. The current staff-to-student ratio, based on a statewide average, is 1 school employee (everyone from janitors to principals) for every 4.55 students.
The key areas of contention centered on whether the $20 million school boards saved in general education costs could be counted toward the Challenges target for fiscal year 2011; whether consolidating school districts into unified supervisory districts should be voluntary or mandatory; and whether the state should impose a limit on staff-to-student ratios.
Under the Challenges for Change law, which was adopted in February, Vermont’s schools are required to work with less money; $13.3 million in fiscal year 2011 and $40 million in fiscal year 2012 has already been removed from the Education Fund budget for administrative costs. The same goes for special education; $7 million in fiscal year 2011 and $10.5 million in fiscal year 2012 has been deleted from the Education Fund already. The question is: How do schools find enough efficiencies to work within smaller budgets, particularly in a very short time frame and when details for the restructuring plan have yet to be released?
Several members of the team, most notably Carl Mock, River Valley Technical Center director, and Tom O’Brien, Addison Northwest SU superintendent, have openly questioned the wisdom of the targets and the fast track set by the Legislature.
O’Brien, who has presided over the consolidation of eight separate school districts of a supervisory district merger project, said it took Addison Northwest about five years to form a unified district, and the change has been slow to realize cost savings.
He said he harbors serious doubts about the efficacy of the Challenges and didn’t hold back in the commissioner’s meetings.
Mock says he doesn’t think the state can achieve $40 million in savings just from administration. He said the target set by the Legislature was politically expedient.
“To assume there is $40 million in savings is foolhardy,” Mock said. “It’s based on a report (from Public Strategies Group) with holes in it. There are savings to be had. What I worry about is setting policy on some shaky numbers.”
Bill Talbott, chief financial officer for the Department of Education, reported at an earlier meeting that the state could save $17 million, tops, if it created 40-50 unified supervisory districts.
Mock suggested that the team go back to the Legislature and tell lawmakers that they aren’t able to come up with all of the savings through administrative cuts.
But Morse said the savings are already booked. “Where they occur is up to you.”
O’Brien retorted that they were booked on “erroneous information.” He questioned whether Vermont would go the way of Maine, which moved toward mandatory district consolidation recently.
“It was a dictate – ‘you will do this’ – and they’re in trouble,” O’Brien said.
He said mergers should be voluntary, and the state should provide incentives for schools and districts to consolidate. O’Brien said the fact that 94 percent of towns passed school budgets on Town Meeting Day is an indication that Vermonters support the state’s schools.
Evslin said this didn’t mean voters are happy about how much their taxes have gone up. “They didn’t want to decimate their schools,” Evslin said. “You can’t take my yes vote as everything is hunky dorey.”
A voluntary merger system will go nowhere, Evslin said, unless there is a deadline and a stick in place after a certain time period. “If we don’t set a date on a voluntary system, then we can’t take advantage of attrition, and we’ll face RIFs (reductions-in-force), not retirements.”
O’Brien and Mock pushed for a broader examination of school costs and a more inclusive approach to solutions.
“We need to help schools find a way to be more efficient, not tell them that these are the things they need to do to change,” O’Brien said.
Morse disagreed. “From my point of view, we don’t have that luxury. These are severe economic times, and what’s going to suffer is the quality of education.
In the end, the majority of team members advised Vilaseca to recommend the following changes to the Legislature:
- That the state assume savings for fiscal year 2011 from the $20 million that school boards cut from budgets at Town Meeting Day;
- That the state reduce the number of small schools
- That the state increase the staff/student ratio (this number would be the driving number for supervisory district sizes)
- That the state achieve general administrative savings through centralizing noneducational functions at the supervisory union level, such as accounting, payroll, special education transportation
- That the state distribute funds for special education through a block grant program, among other changes.
The team also discussed a transitional consolidation plan that would give districts three to five years to voluntarily consolidate with other districts. At the end of that time, the commissioner would have the authority to implement consolidated district boundaries. There was not complete consensus on this idea.
