A confidential memo obtained by Vermont Public Radio shows that the Agency of Education is still working to decipher a school reform lawpassed by the Legislature earlier this year. The ambiguity centers on how to deal with the 93 Vermont towns where parents get to decide what school their children attend.
The four-page memorandum was authored by Gregory Glennon, the general counsel at the Agency of Education. It was sent last week to members of the Vermont State Board of Education.
In the memo, Glennon asks the board to resolve unanswered questions around what happens when districts with school choice — places where towns don’t operate their own elementary, middle or high school — merge into a new governance structure that has schools those students could now attend.
Would the students from the choice districts have to attend the school in the merged structure? Would students from some towns in the new governance structure continue to have the option of school choice, while students from other towns did not? Are choice districts precluded from even considering a merger with a district with its own schools, if it meant loss of choice for the students that previously had it?
“We have been presented, at the agency, with a variety of insights about the meaning of Section 4,” Glennon wrote, referring to the section of the reform law that addresses the choice district issue. “This appears to be a case of the Legislature having spoken, but we aren’t sure what they have said.”
That's a major problem, says Margaret MacLean, a former principal of the year at Peacham Elementary School who until this past winter served on the state Board of Education. She says the legal memo highlights potential minefields that must be addressed so that towns know if they can preserve school choice, or not, before they move forward with various merger proposals.
“They can’t move toward forming a preferred district until there’s clarity around this,” MacLean says.
The new law, known as Act 46, aims to streamline educational governance and improve academic opportunities by merging the state’s nearly 300 school districts into larger entities. It provides all sorts of tax incentives and other financial enticements to encourage them to do so.
"This appears to be a case of the Legislature having spoken, but we aren't sure what they have said." - Gregory Glennon, general counsel at the Agency of Education, in a confidential memo for the state Board of Education
MacLean is active in ongoing merger discussions in Peacham, where parents get to send their kids to whatever high school they want. But she says residents can’t assess the universe of possibilities until they know how various proposals would impact school choice.
“How do we reconcile what’s in Section 4 and create a district that’s constitutionally acceptable that has a mix of choice and no-choice towns?” MacLean says.
A single governance entity in which some students got school choice and others did not would likely run afoul of the Vermont Constitution.
Bristol Rep. Dave Sharpe, the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Education, says legislative intent of Act 46 is pretty clear, as it relates to choice districts and non-choice districts alike.
“They have several options,” Sharpe says.
Here’s one of them: districts with K-8 schools that have choice when it comes to where kids go to high school, according to Sharpe, could merge up with other similarly structured choice towns, and combine efforts at the K-8 level, while continuing to tuition everyone to high schools somewhere else.
Choice towns could also merge with non-choice towns, Sharpe says, and give up their right to send their kids to other schools. Or districts without choice could merge with districts that have it, and get rid of their own schools and tuition their students to schools outside the newly merged district.
One thing Sharpe says is crystal clear in the law: Choice districts can’t be forced to give up choice, and districts with their own schools can’t be forced to close them.
“Let me be clear, though, that the communities that decide to close the school and tuition students, that has to be a choice that the community makes, it can’t be forced on them,” Sharpe says.
Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe says she can’t comment on the confidential memo. But she says it’s no surprise that a complex education governance law would be tricky to implement.
“It unfolds on top of a bedrock of accumulated practice and other statute that’s already in place. And so part of any new legislation is working backward from the intent of the law into how it’s going to map out over the Vermont landscape,” Holcombe says.
"Part of any new legislation is working backward from the intent of the law into how it's going to map out over the Vermont landscape." - Secretary of Education Rebecca Holcombe
Holcombe says the law has spawned important conversations among and between districts across Vermont. She says those conversations have the potential to yield solutions to the vexing problem of how to maintain academic quality in a state with shrinking student enrollment.
Holcombe says state planning grants will provide districts with the funds they need to pay for legal advice on how proceed with a merger plan that aligns with the priorities of that community. She says she thinks Act 46 is accommodating enough to provide solutions for districts of all types. And she says the agency and the state Board of Education stand ready to work with districts to resolve issues as they arise.
“And I think the kinds of questions that are coming up now are the responsible byproduct of boards really pushing the options and pushing the issues and trying to understand what the implications are,” Holcombe says.
Jamaica Rep. Oliver Olsen, who worked closely on the education reform law, and whose legislative district includes choice towns, says preserving districts' absolute right to retain school choice was a key provision needed to earn it passage on the House floor.
“The objective here is to create larger, more tightly integrated education districts that provide for more opportunity and better outcomes for Vermont students at acost that we can afford,” Olsen says.
Olsen says lawmakers hope the law will encourage school boards and parents to "think outside the box, think creatively about how they can reconfigure their education governance and delivery system to provide better outcomes for their students.”
Olsen says he thinks there’s plenty of latitude in Act 46 for choice districts to participate successfully in that process, without sacrificing the choice that many of them hold dear.
“And I think that there is genuine commitment both within the Agency of Education, the state Board of Education and within the General Assembly to resolve and iron out those kinks in the system,” Olsen says.
Stephan Morse, the chairman of the state Board of Education, says he can’t discuss legal issues around Act 46, since they’re the subject of ongoing executive-session deliberations by the board.
