To Redistricting Task Force: Vermont's School Boards Have Promising, Workable Ideas for Cooperative Redistricting

Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) Chair Keri Bristow announced Monday that MVSU has agreed to work with the Hartford School District and the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union to explore the advantages of creating a single, larger, more efficient and equitable school district. Bristow spoke during a meeting of Vermont’s Redistricting Task Force (RTF) in Waterbury.

Reading from a letter signed by all three boards, Bristow said that the resolution to work together came after consensus that they share similar educational goals, a Career and Technical Center (HSCTC), and geographical alignment that will support the formation of an effective regional unit.

The letter also confirmed that the boards are already exploring both supervisory district and supervisory union structures to determine the most efficient operating processes.

As formally submitted Monday by Bristow to the RTF, the letter continued, “We support the Redistricting Task Force’s consideration of our three distinct districts, Mountain Views Supervisory Union, Hartford School District, and Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union, as a new, larger unit in compliance with Act 73, as it will be a practical and effective path to meeting the state's goals while protecting our communities and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our schools.”

In remarks preceding the letter’s presentation, Bristow acknowledged the RTF's difficult and often unpopular work to clarify the loosely defined terms of Act 73. The Act, formerly known as bill H.454, is the sweeping attempt by Vermont’s legislative and gubernatorial branches to reform the State’s struggling educational system. It was passed into law last June after months of debate.

Reminding sitting RTF members that almost all Vermont communities both embrace their schools and hope to keep them open, she added that school closures have the negative effect of “erasing our communities’ identities.”

“Closing schools and reducing the numbers of staff and teachers is the most realistic way to achieve [Act 73’s] scope of efficiencies, which has its own economic implications and will be highly unpopular,” said Bristow. “No financial model has been presented to convince communities that this reform process is worth losing their schools and community identities.”

In the face of such possible losses, Bristow warned the RTF of the near-certain negative economic impacts that could result when residents of towns where schools no longer exist choose to sell their homes -- many to out-of-state, second-home buyers with little interest in advancing Vermont’s education system in the future.

Highlighting another collaboration called BOCES

Also presenting before the RTF on Monday were MVSU Superintendent Sherry Sousa and Executive Director of the Vermont Learning Collaborative (VLC), Jill Graham. Together, they provided task force members insight into the history, function, and goals of Boards of Educational Service Agencies, or BOCES, as they have performed across the nation and most recently in Vermont.

Graham defined BOCES as regional education agencies authorized by state statute or administrative code that exist primarily to provide instructional support, management, planning programs, and services to local education agencies.

“It’s a really exciting opportunity for Vermont,” Graham told RTF members. “I really do feel that this structure offers a wonderful opportunity to support students as well as supervisory unions and school districts with bringing economies of scale and efficiency.”

Last August, MVSU earned positive attention from the State as well as extensive media coverage after an announcement that its board had unanimously voted to become the founding member of Vermont’s first BOCES.

Title 16 of Vermont Statutes empowers BOCES to provide shared resources and responsive solutions that can cost-effectively meet many short- and long-term regional challenges faced by school districts across Vermont. BOCES members stand to gain benefits that include shared staffing resources, professional-development initiatives, recruitment and hiring support, consultation services, and the pooling of resources for cooperative purchasing, transportation, and other services at reduced costs.

BOCES could also provide new and critically important operational advantages to school districts, unions, and the towns that comprise them as Vermont seeks to expand the size and reduce the number of districts under the partially defined terms of Act 73.

In their presentation, Sousa and Graham said that national case studies on BOCES’ performance in the areas of professional development, evaluation services, and regional specialized programming showed savings to participating school districts of up to 63%, an average of 42%, and up to 39%, respectively.

“When I think about Act 73 and its emphasis on bringing both equity and addressing costs,” said Sousa, “BOCES offers the potential to accomplish such goals and serve schools and their students across Vermont extremely well – today and in the future.”

Several sitting RTF members strongly endorsed the BOCES concept.