Plan Would Expand School Choice for All Vermont Students

Under the current system, only students who live in districts without a public school are allowed to use tax dollars to send their children to a public or approved independent school of their choice. For instance, a student in the Grand Isle Supervisory Union, which doesn’t have a high school, could choose to attend a public institution such as South Burlington High School or a private one such as Rice Memorial High School.

About 3,500 students are currently “tuitioned” to private schools, while more than 72,000 attend K-12 public schools.

The idea of expanding school choice — a sensitive subject in Vermont, a state where the vast majority of students attend public schools — is part of a larger proposal Saunders presented that would consolidate the state’s 119 school districts into five regional school districts ranging in size from around 10,000 to 34,000 students. Gov. Phil Scott is firmly behind the plan, highlighting the proposed overhaul in both his inaugural speech and budget address to lawmakers.

The proposed governance model is “about strengthening our statewide public education system,” Saunders said, and would promote equity and foster local engagement.

Under the proposed restructuring, all five school districts would operate K-12 public schools; each district would create “attendance zones” that would dictate what public school each child is assigned to for elementary, middle and high school.

As committee members digested the details on Thursday, the implications of the change seemed to sink in.

“So, we have areas that have traditionally had tuitioning due to a lack of public schools. We’ve had other areas that have been public schools all the way,” said Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), the committee chair. “Does this open the door to folks coming in and creating an independent school in competition with the public school system?”

Saunders didn’t directly answer the question.

“This proposal is really designed to promote a well-functioning ecosystem that is able to achieve the balance of strong public, local schools and choice options,” Saunders said. She said that any school-choice school would have to meet “clear education quality and financial metrics.”

“Currently, we have choice in parts of the state,” Rep. Erin Brady (D-Williston) said. “Fundamentally, this creates school choice … in every part of the state.”

Saunders framed it differently.

“This is really structuring it as more of an intentional ecosystem where we can, as a state, guarantee that there’s access to a public school and also specialized opportunities for students to align to their interests,” she said.

Saunders’ presentation on Thursday came a week after she unveiled a new funding proposal based on a mechanism called the foundation formula. That system would dictate how much money the state provides the five new districts.

The model assumes a school district of 3,900 students would have a central office staff of 29, including one superintendent, one assistant superintendent and one business manager. But the proposed school districts are much larger than that, so they would be allowed to have bigger central offices, according to the governance plan memo provided to legislators.

“For example, in a district of 15,000 students, instead of the 29 central office staff members identified above, the district could have 111 central office staff members at the same cost per student,” the memo states, “while a district of 34,000 students would be resourced for over 200 district-level staff.”

Each district would be governed by a five-member school board, with the exception of the larger Champlain Valley District, which could have seven members. Districts would be broken into wards to vote for school board members to make them geographically representative, Saunders said. Board members would be paid a part-time salary by their district, though Saunders didn’t provide an amount.

Schools would also have advisory committees made up of students, parents and caregivers, educators and community members that would provide input on budgeting and help develop a school improvement plan. Those committee members would be volunteers.

“Clearly a lot of thought went into this,” Conlon said after Saunders’ presentation. “It’s very provocativem and we need provocative. The end result when all is said and done may not be identical to this, but there’s a lot here.”