Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rama Schneider, who is an active and interested community member as well as part of Williamstown’s local school board.
[T]he statewide trend in reacting to Vermont’s Act 46 of 2015, “An act relating to making amendments to education funding, education spending, and education governance,” is a testament to the inter-district working relationships that the Vermont education system’s supervisory unions have and continue to develop. Most supervisory unions are attempting in some form to forge a future that includes keeping the family together by developing a future governance structure involving all the familiar faces.
The Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union is one case in point.
The St Albans Messenger has a story titled “FRANKLIN NORTHEAST: 5 towns, 1 school district?” (St. Albans Messenger, Sept. 24, 2015) that discusses the different possibilities available to keep the districts of Enosburgh, Richford, Bakersfield, Berkshire and Montgomery together. The first choice among this supervisory union family appears to be a common future whether through an Act 46 “preferred structure” (Act 46, Section 5) or a “side by side” regional education district as defined in Act 153 of 2010 and modified in Act 156 of 2012. The former requires a common structure such as all-in for preK through 12 with no tuition, and the latter allows for a set of districts to merge into separate entities which allows for more than one tuition/no-tuition model.
The Orange North Supervisory Union family is working through the same conundrum: how to maintain the historically and functionally significant relationships that have developed through years of working together? Although it may appear simple at first, this question becomes fraught with difficulties due to mixing of tuition and non-tuition districts.
While we at the local districts can get a feel for what is and isn’t desired or possible at the local level, we really don’t yet know how the state Agency of Education and Vermont State Board of Education will react to the proposals.
For some supervisory unions, such as the Barre Supervisory Union (BSU), the path forward is much less complex. The BSU is made up of the Barre City and Barre Town district which individually provide preK-8 and Spaulding High School, which is a union high school for the two Barres. There will be some consternation when it comes to relinquishing long cherished local choices such as bus ownership, but the end game, a single district encompassing the city and town, is logical and reachable.
How this whole Act 46 process of governance change works out will be interesting. While we at the local districts can get a feel for what is and isn’t desired or possible at the local level, we really don’t yet know how the state Agency of Education and Vermont State Board of Education will react to the proposals.
But for now the strengths of Vermont’s supervisory union structure is shining through and driving the discussions.
