[A]ttention turned to class sizes and student-staff ratios as the House Education Committee continued to fine tune its education reform bill Monday.
Brad James, education finance manager for the Vermont Agency of Education, showed committee members tables detailing student-staff and administrator-student ratios in Vermont’s schools.
“We have extraordinarily low student-to-teacher ratios in Vermont,” James said.
Jeffrey Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, said that Vermont is lower in administrator, staff and teacher to student ratios than any other state in the country.
A separate bill was introduced last week to require a 15:1 minimum student-teacher ratio and sets other adult-to-student ratios.
The bill would require ratios by July 1, 2018, and offer tax incentives for complying districts — and penalties for noncompliant districts.
The bill was introduced by Reps. Kevin “Coach” Christie, D-Hartford; Alison Clarkson, D-Woodstock; Dennis Devereux, R-Mount Holly; and Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor.
Christie said the issues the committee keeps coming back to all have to do with size, and the need to increase sizes in order to both improve student learning opportunities and respond to the plea from taxpayers for cost efficiencies.
The crux of the bill the committee is pounding out revolves around working to get school districts to come together into larger integrated education systems.
The bill calls for larger, integrated education systems of at least 1,000 students, and would require districts that do not move toward the model to receive a waiver from the State Board of Education. The bill also encourages districts to work with their neighbors and to explore ways to form larger school systems in their regions.
The bill will be presented Tuesday morning by the Legislative Council. Rep. David Sharpe, D-Bristol, chair of the committee, wants to hold a vote on it this week.
Of consolidation legislation, Christie said, “It isn’t going to be pretty, and we aren’t going to make a lot of friends… but something has to shift if we are going to help the kids.”
Christie addressed his remarks to Rebecca Holcombe, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Education.
In a presentation she gave the full Legislature at the opening of the session in January, Holcombe noted that the state could save $74 million a year by shifting the present student to staff ratios from 4.67:1 to 5:1.
Holcombe expressed concern that imposing ratios could lead to harmful cuts.
Sharpe, the chair, expressed frustration at this juncture about the obstacles being put in the bill’s path as it is nearing its final form this week.
“I would like to hear where the agency thinks we should be going in a way that actually gets something done, and we know the money is where the ratios are,” Sharpe said. “What can we do about phantom students or small schools grants that move us in the direction of larger school districts?”
James cautioned that if legislation that comes out of the committee contains a call to “move the needle” on teacher and/or staff to student ratios, that it be “done thoughtfully.”
“That’s where the money is,” said Rep. Alice Miller, D-Shaftsbury, of the personnel costs, about 80 percent of education spending, multiple witnesses have testified.
Much of the focus in the Legislature this year has been on how to improve student learning opportunities and equity across Vermont while grappling with increasing education costs and property tax rates to pay for the state’s schools.
Those rising costs come with a sharp decline in student enrollments in the state’s schools the past decade, a loss of students projected to continue through at least 2030, according to projections the state has in hand.
Rep. Kurt Wright, R-Burlington, asked what the response would be from schools if a ratio were built into the bill.
“If there was a reasonable target, and not a pie in the sky target, I think school districts would try,” James said. “It would need to take time so that people could make thoughtful decisions on how they are going to reorganize.” It may be enough to see some small schools move to close, he testified.
