Special education students’ access to private schools, expansion of career and technical schooling, and leadership for pre-kindergarten programs are expected to be on the House and Senate education committees’ agendas in the upcoming session.
But as usual, the biggest issue will be money, as lawmakers scramble to close an $80 million hole in the state’s education fund and renew their quest for the holy grail: a better way to pay for Vermont’s schools.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott says schools need to trim staff — he maintains that changing the student-to-staff ratio from its current 4-to-1 to 5-to-1 would save $100 million, closing the education fund gap with money to spare.
The ratios include all staff, from superintendents and teachers to cafeteria workers.
But neither of the Democrats who chair the committees — Rep. David Sharpe in the House and Sen. Philip Baruth in the Senate — is keen on Scott’s idea.
Baruth calls Scott’s idea an election year political ploy: Appease payers of the property tax while telling parents their children will get less individualized attention in school. He says education quality will suffer.
Special education costs are up because more students are dealing with the consequences of the opiate crisis and more families are living in poverty, officials say. Staff cuts often are offset by the need to hire a behavioral specialist and paraprofessionals to help an increasing number of needy students.
Those people are necessary, even if school districts contract out they still have to staff the jobs and pay them, according to Sharpe. He said he didn’t think any “magical savings” would come from just changing ratios. “We need to actually help schools run better systems. Help students in a more effective way that is successful for kids and saves money.”
Sharpe wants to look at specific ways to improve special education services while increasing quality. One study Sharpe’s committee is expected to review examines whether special ed services could better be delivered with more reliance on qualified teachers and less on paraprofessionals.
“I do think the ratios should improve, we should move toward having 4.5 to 1 or 5 to 1 to save money,” said Sharpe. But, he added, that has to happen by implementing best practices for teaching special education. “Instead of two paraprofessionals we have one special education teacher who is more highly trained and can deliver better services to children.”
Sharpe wants to look at paying for special education in a comprehensive way. A recent cost study by the University of Vermont and Agency of Education will be considered. Both studies were driven by results of another, known as the Picus study, that found Vermont overpays for special education by around $140 million.
“If we could save half of the $140 million by changing how we fund special education and bringing best practices to the state that would be a win,” said Sharpe. He wants to implement best practices identified in the two reports across the state “so we end up serving our students better and doing it for less money. That will be a huge challenge for the committee.”
In the Senate, the debate over special education will focus on how to make sure students with an individual education plan who live in towns that pay to send students to private schools have the same options as their peers.
Over the summer, Baruth headed a special committee that took up three issues opened up by the State Board of Education’s rule-making process for approving private schools: special education, open enrollment and financial disclosure.
The panel remained deadlocked on most issues, but Baruth sees a path toward compromise on enrolling special education students at private schools that get state dollars. He said he doesn’t want to continue considering whether private schools should have open enrollment or change the financial disclosure requirements.
“I’m willing to put that aside and focus almost exclusively on making sure special needs kids can access the best school with the best placement regardless of whether that is an independent or public school,” he said.
When the Senate is done, Sharpe expects to take on the issue in the House.
Baruth said the Finance Committee will handle the education tax question in the Senate.
On the House side, Sharpe plans to let the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee take the lead on school taxes. He said federal changes to the tax code and budget will affect education taxes and the way the state raises money generally.
“There are other things happening in taxes to upset the apple cart and make it difficult to understand how it affects our general fund and our education fund,” he said. “I think Ways and Means has a much broader scope they will have to deal with. They will look first, and we will look at our education piece in the ed fund.”
He is also passing first dibs on the issue that caused a veto session last summer: whether to move teacher health care negotiations to the state level. The House Health Care Committee will have first look at the report that Sharpe said was not clear cut in its recommendations, followed by the education panel.
There could be a path forward to have a single health care plan for all state employees, including municipal workers and teachers, he said, that could be something labor would also support. “Moving toward a single payer plan, taking steps that we can take in Vermont, that are reasonable,” Sharpe said.
Other things Sharpe wants to home in on:
• Career and technical education: Sharpe wants to introduce CTE to middle school students to whet their appetite for options in high school. This would grow the base of engaged students and allow for more class offerings.
• The Education Agency and the Agency of Health and Human Services have recommended letting AOE take the lead on pre-kindergarten. Lawmakers will need to create legislation to deal with the proposal.
Baruth plans to move on Stamford’s request for an interstate school district with Clarksburg, Massachusetts. After driving the roads, looking at a map and listening to locals, Baruth said, he found their argument to satisfy the Act 46 school district consolidation law by merging with a Massachusetts town compelling.
“I will try to make sure we do our part in the Senate to get out language that approves that,” he said. The interstate district also would require congressional approval.
The Senate Education Committee will also consider:
• A no-strike, no-imposition bill that would end both teachers’ right to strike during bargaining and a school board’s right to impose contract terms. Baruth said a member of his committee, Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, has a bill and it is his practice to hear legislation from committee members.
• Last year’s omnibus education law, Act 49, required the Education Agency to study how the state weighs students differently in the education funding formula. Since then, Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe said the agency doesn’t have the resources to do the study.
Holcombe asked for a budget adjustment of $300,000 to involve UVM. Baruth said it sounded like “a hell of a lot of money” and he would rather hire someone to staff the Education Agency. “You could get 4.5 years of work from a person for the $300K to complete this study,” he said, rather than pulling it out of state coffers, adding that the agency has been understaffed for years.
According to Baruth, predictions and plans to take up issues are great, but all bets are off when the session opens and Scott gives his State of the State address. “These are just the appetizers. You don’t know what is going to come to the floor. The governor will roll out stuff in the State of the State, and we will have to deal with it,” he said.
