MONTPELIER – Over the first two weeks of the new biennium, the House Education Committee has devoted its time to preparing for Governor Scott’s education reform proposal that will be unveiled on January 28.
Committee members hope to gain a thorough understanding of Vermont’s current education financing system and the strengths and weaknesses of the cost drivers in a time of declining enrollment.
We met with many key stakeholders. This included Secretary of Education Zoie Saunders, from whom we received a summary report of the Listen and Learn Tour she recently conducted throughout the state; visiting public schools and meeting with teachers, administrators, students and community members.
We heard from members of the Commission of the Future of Public Education in Vermont, who shared the preliminary findings of a study they carried out over the past year.
We received testimony from the Vermont Superintendents Association, the Vermont Principals Association, the Vermont School Board Association and the Vermont National Education Association. Each of these groups shared with us their legislative priorities. Though sometimes their strategies differed, ultimately everyone we heard from shares the same goals, which are to provide quality education to all Vermont students in safe and healthy buildings, to respond to current crises in both workforce shortage and mental health needs among our youth and to do so at a price Vermonters can afford.
Where paths forward begin to veer off from each other have to do with who should be taxed and at what level to meet our financial needs, how far we should go to increase class size without cutting important student programming and what we should do to recruit and retain our workforce, among other issues.
Some of the facts and figures presented to us that stood out the most include:
What we learned, and what many of us who spent our careers as educators already knew, is schools are being overwhelmed with growing mental health needs of students.
Overall, K-12 enrollment in our public schools has declined by 21.5 percent since 2003, and chronic absenteeism doubled between 2019 and 2022, peaking at 42% before dropping back to 30% in 2023.
There is a lack of staff capacity to provide full services as the overburdened system has led to further burnout and higher turnover rates among mental health professionals.
The costs and count of students with disabilities requiring special education services and on IEPs has steadily risen over the last decade.
Additional support in special education and behavioral intervention are necessary, as are teacher recruitment and retention strategies.
Nearly 800 provisional and emergency educator licenses were issued in 2024.
Currently more than 80,000 Vermont students are served by 287 public schools across 188 school districts throughout our state, which are divided into 51 supervisory unions.
Vermont ranks 46th in the nation in school size, and first in the nation for lowest teacher and support staff-to-student ratios, figures which contribute to an overall 5th-place ranking in highest total expenditures per pupil.
Finally, in considering the physical facilities of Vermont schools themselves, beginning in 2023, the School Construction Aid Taskforce conducted a study of all Vermont public school buildings and released a report showing there is more than $6 billion worth of total needs in facility repairs over the next two decades, with an annual average cost estimated to be $300 million just to repair and maintain our existing buildings right now. They identified more than $228 million in immediate needs.
It is becoming increasingly clear from all of this data that Vermont schools are in crisis.
In order to significantly reduce the cost of education in this state, in addition to reforming what is already an incredibly complex funding formula, there will have to be some compromises made, likely in the form of reconfigurations and possible consolidations at the school, district or supervisory level.
Many Vermonters have been very clear that local control remains important to them. We need to prioritize inviting and engaging local voices into these conversations as we make the difficult decisions that will affect the way we deliver education to students within our rural communities. As we move forward, we will be carefully examining optimal class sizes, but as we do so it is important to remember there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution. This is especially true for rural districts in which consolidation between schools may require overly long transportation times for young students that could cost critical learning time.
There is also a plain and simple reality that, in our smallest towns, it would take a much larger degree of consolidation to achieve the same optimal numbers per classroom than it would in more populated areas.
Therefore, it is critical that we make decisions that place the needs of our students and of our individual communities at the center of any changes we enact, while still balancing a deep commitment and a shared responsibility to provide every student in this state with equitable opportunities to have their diverse educational needs delivered by a highly qualified teacher at a price Vermonters can afford.
As you can see, that’s a whole lot to accomplish all at once and we are only now at the beginning of this process.
I feel like I stand at a good vantage point to weigh in on the complexity of this problem, as a local taxpayer myself, the parent of two children attending small local public schools and a teacher who has worked in our public education system for more than a decade.
Having talked recently to other community members working within our school system, in education, finance and administrative sectors, I am also confident that the problems we face are being deeply considered by those outside the legislature as well. For instance, OSSU is developing a rollout plan of sister schools that would enable each of our towns to maintain a school within our community, minimize transportation time among students by providing more than one local site for each grade, share resources throughout the district, and give students healthier opportunities for socialization among broader peer groups. This solution seems to be thoughtful and addresses multiple problems being identified right now.
It’s this kind of collaborative thinking and working together that makes me believe that the many smart minds in our community trying to tackle these issues will eventually succeed in landing on solutions that work for our towns.
My biggest takeaway, or at least one that I want Vermonters to be aware of, from the testimony I witnessed over the past couple of weeks, is that we will not have everything figured out by the end of this legislative session. We are trying to act fast, but are dealing with big proposals that will take time to enact.
It’s important now that we listen, show patience and enter into this work with a good-faith effort to believe that everyone shares a goal and commitment to lower taxes and improve quality education for all Vermont students. Concerns are absolutely being heard, and while it may look messy and overwhelming at first, we will get there eventually.
Rep. Leanne Harple
