Education Secretary Dan French announced Friday that he would not support a Vermont-NEA proposal to create a new statewide commission on reopening schools.
Since the state released broad school reopening guidelines last month, the NEA — the union that represents most of the state’s school employees — had been pushing for the creation of a task force to involve more educators and staff members in the reopening process. French wrote in a statement Friday that the union’s proposed commission would not be “responsive enough or nimble enough” to support individual school districts as they work to implement state guidelines.
A state planning group that meets weekly and includes Vermont-NEA representatives is working “very well,” French said. A new commission would be unnecessary, he said, adding that the proposed commission would lack “the necessary legal or regulatory authority to establish and impose” statewide mandates.
Vermont-NEA President Don Tinney conceded that French “may legally be correct” that the commission couldn’t mandate directives, but he said, “I still think that we would’ve been able to offer some really sound directives, even if it were in the category of sound advice.
“We’re very disappointed that we’re not going to have our members making decisions at the state level about how to best reopen schools safely,” Tinney said. “The safety and health guidelines that we have are a good start, and we need to have educators at the table as they develop implementation plans to make sure those guidelines and standards are met in all schools.”
Under the NEA’s proposal, the commission would have been tasked with providing further guidance to districts on how to plan reopening.
“It still is important that we have folks working at the state level — the expertise of our educators combined with the expertise of health professionals — to provide additional guidance to local school districts, rather than have 57 different interpretations of the health and safety guidelines and 57 totally different plans,” Tinney said.
The Vermont Principals’ Association, the Vermont School Boards Association and the Vermont Superintendents Association all opposed the creation of a commission, despite echoing many of the NEA’s concerns about establishing further statewide guidance.
“We didn’t believe that a commission was the best way to get the answers that are needed when they were needed,” said Jeff Francis, the executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association.
Francis, though, said the issues raised by the union in calling for the commission were “legitimate and important.”
Francis said he requested that French “formalize” the group of education stakeholders, including union representatives, that currently meets on Fridays “so that we could more deliberately take into consideration the types of questions that the NEA was asking.”
“We thought that the issues that were brought forward by the NEA should be part of an agenda that the stakeholders with which Dan [French] is working should be brought forward as a first order of business,” Francis said.
Sue Ceglowski, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association, said a new commission would “be unwieldy and lack the flexibility to address the ever-changing environment imposed by the pandemic.”
Tinney said he was surprised by the timing of French’s announcement, which was tweeted out by the Agency of Education’s official account at 1:52 p.m., in the middle of the weekly meeting with education stakeholders during which the commission was being discussed.
“I don’t know how to interpret that other than, apparently it was a foregone conclusion before we went in the meeting,” Tinney said.
Francis said he found the timing “unusual.”
“I think the process should’ve been afforded more respect,” he said.
Agency of Education spokesperson Ted Fisher declined to comment on the announcement’s timing, and wrote in an email, they “remain perplexed by the VT-NEA’s calls for a seat at the table when they’ve been at the table all along.”
“The Dept. of Health, the Agency of Education and this education stakeholder group has created statewide health guidance to safely reopen schools–with several members of the VT-NEA at the table and contributing every step of the way,” Fisher wrote. “Now, we need to implement this guidance through local district leadership. We did not feel another statewide task force would expedite this process or be well-positioned to do this type of work that has always occurred at the local level, which the Secretary conveyed in his statement.”
“We hope the VT-NEA and their members can lend their expertise and bandwidth to help local education leaders prepare for the fall,” Fisher added.
In recent weeks, Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden and a candidate for lieutenant governor, backed the Vermont-NEA’s request for a task force that includes more school employees. Gov. Phil Scott characterized Ashe’s request as a political move.
